Monday: Ladies Pay Day

WNBA’s ‘Cash Cow’ embracing vs fighting it, losing money.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Last Sunday when I was didn't get a chance obviously
last week with being out. But the w NBA players
at the All Star Game last week all wear shorts
in shirts, wore shirts in unity saying pay us what
you owe us. And Kelsey Plumb, who used to play
here for San Antonio and I didn't get to know

(00:25):
her very much, just barely here for a year when
the team went to Vegas. Good player. I think the
Vegas would be better if she was still on their roster.
But she basically said, not to be a tattletale, but
I'm going to be a tattletale, and I am. You know,
it's one of those things where not to offend you,
but I'm getting ready to offend you. That Team Clark
was not present for their meeting, that I guess Team

(00:47):
Clark really didn't know anything about. At least Paige Becker
stood up and said that wasn't necessary. That wasn't necessary. Yeah, Sabrina,
I asked you, was right next to her, looking at
her like why so, yeah, Sabrina. Not not page with Sabrina,
I ask you. That said that, I am more and
more convinced, and I cannot for the life of me
understand this that there are players in the WNBA who

(01:08):
over resent Caitlin Clark, and it's getting to the point
of nauseating to where I think people are going to
stop watching at the level that they are. This is
the cash cow. And this goes back to something I've
been talking about. And I was a part of that
league for thirteen seasons, backing up Andrew Monico and working
with him on the radio broadcast that we did here,

(01:30):
and I thought the level of basketball was amazing. And
I think the ladies that I was around on the
Stars and even some on the other teams were the
most cordial people that you can think of. But this
group of WNBA players is making me not want to
watch as much because you need to be embracing Caitlin
Clark and all the things that she gave you. There

(01:52):
would be no charter aircraft without her, you would not
be staying in the hotels that you're staying in. Without her,
you would not have the notoriety, and you would not
be in a position to even ask for more money.
With the league losing twenty to forty million dollars a year,
I did not know. I knew the number was low
I thought the number was around twenty percent, but the

(02:12):
actual number of baseball of a basketball related income that
the players in the WNBA get is just over nine percent.
I think it's nine point two percent. Yeah, and that
needs to increase. I definitely agree. But I saw an
article that Kelsey did a year or so ago that
said in the NBA they get fifty percent of the
revenue split. Why don't we? And I understand, I want

(02:36):
everybody to make money. I don't think I've said this
a million times. Nobody's ever overpaid. But there's only so
much money I can give you if I can't make
it back in return, and either the league needs to
do an audit and figure out why they're spending forty
million dollars more than they're making and why the NBA
owners and the NBA in general that operates the league

(02:58):
to some extent is is there are places where they
can cut costs so that the league can be more
efficient and more streamlined with the revenue that's coming in.
I don't want people to lose jobs, but that would
obviously be part of the equation if they're you know,
we may have to doge a little bit of the
of the WNBA if there's things being spent in places

(03:18):
that we don't necessarily need. But I've never thought that
the WNBA was properly run from the commissioner's office. And
I got to meet a lot of commissioners in the
league over the years that were phenomenal people, but to me,
too much of the time it was spent catering to
the to the players and not enough time doing the

(03:39):
hardcore things that you need to do to run a league.
People didn't like David Stern that much. A lot of
people still bow Adam Silver, but they all do things
and operate things that are going to benefit the league.
They're owners that don't like his decisions, and they're players
that don't like the decisions. But these guys are not
owners and they're not players. They're business people that know

(03:59):
how to operate a league so that it can function properly.
And there needs to be a zoom call and mandatory
call for every player on every roster and say, listen,
you can play Caitlin Clark physical if you want, but
this idea that you're trying to hurt her, that you're
trying to get her kicked out of games, stop it.
We're trying to pay you more money, and the one

(04:21):
person that's going to give you the opportunity to make
more money, you're against. You have an issue with get
over yourself. How many times did Pop say that the
key to being a Spur was getting over yourself. There's
too many players in the WNBA that are not over themselves.
And yes, I think it sucks that Asia Wilson hasn't
gotten the credit that she deserves the last three or
four years. But guess what, people get to watch her

(04:44):
play more now because there are more eyeballs on it
thanks to Caitlin Clark. That's the message that needs to
be getting across. I think the number probably is somewhere
between eighteen and twenty five percent, and that would be
two to two and a half times, maybe even three times,
almost more money than you're getting now. So and it

(05:04):
wouldn't necessarily be across the board, but the star players
would be making closer to half a million dollars and
the rookies would be making closer to over they're making
seventy six now, so they could be making somewhere between
one twenty five and one fifty depending on what they
come up with with the final number. I definitely think
that they deserve more, but they've got to figure out
a way to cut cost or increase revenue for this

(05:27):
to be possible and for it to work. What I
hope does not happen and I fear does happen. We
always talk about labor strikes, labor strife causing issues. When
Major League Baseball canceled the World Series in nineteen ninety
four after the strike, it took cheating and a steroid
scandal to get it back, and then the steroid scandal
with Sosain Maguire and those that followed after. It took

(05:49):
a while for player for fans to get okay with
the fact that baseball was trying to clean itself up
a little bit. And every time that there's an NBA
or NFL a lockout or strike, it takes a few
games for people to come back. But these are traditional
sports that have been going on for over one hundred
years with the NFL in baseball and almost seventy with basketball,

(06:10):
maybe eighty I guess in the nineteen forties is when
it started. So we're kind of in the in and
around eighty years of NBA legacy, and I don't want
to see the WNBA get to a point or where
they just say, Okay, we're not going to do it anymore.
We're out, We're done. Close the league, Go play in
Siberia if you want to make any money. But that's
a possibility. If the players fall on their sword over

(06:32):
fifty percent, that number is unattainable. It's not sustainable, and
you have to run a league. You still have to
run a league. I wish the jerseys and the t
shirts would have said something different than pay us what
you owe us, because paying what you owe us means
you need to give us more money regardless. No, there
needs to be a fair share of the revenue, for sure,

(06:53):
but it may have been pay us what we deserve,
or pay us more, or let's get a deal done,
something along those lines. That doesn't make anyone feel like
And again, players don't understand business. There's not one player
in not one There's not ten players in the w
NBA that understand the intricacies of running a league and

(07:15):
how important having the revenue to run that league is.
You still have to have a staff, you still have
to pay for rent in the New York office building.
There's a bunch of stuff that you got to do
to run a business, and the players are not thinking
about that until, like NBA players, they decide to have
a partial stake in the ownership. And then when they're
having partial stake in the ownership, they go, well, that's

(07:36):
my money now that we're spending. It's easy to spend
other people's money when you're a player. It's really hard
to spend your own when you're an owner, especially when
it's not coming in. So, and here's the last thing
that I'll say on this topic. Ice Cube, who founded
the Big Three League and tried to get Caitlin Clark
to join the league in the WNBA's offseason, your favorite
rapp up and offered, no, that's flow rideoup. He offered

(07:59):
five million dollars. He was asked, why don't you give
Angel Reese five million dollars she would play in that league.
Of course, she's got an eight thousand dollars a month
apartment she needs to pay for, so perhaps she could
use it. And he basically came out and said, I'll
still pay Caitlyn Clark five million, but I'm not paying
Angel Reese that much because she's not going to bring
that many eyeballs to my viewership. If Kaitlyn Clark played

(08:23):
in the Big Three, he would make his five million back.
He understands the business side of it. He may pay
Angel Rease something, but it will be a far cry
from five million dollars. All right, each your row into
the Hall of Fame. He was kind of funny yesterday
c CE Sabathia and others in the Hall of Fame.
We'll get into that coming up. We'll talk about Project
Marvel and some spurs talk from the ticket