Caitlin Clark Should Not Have To Take Her Shots For Less
Caitlin Clark has been taking college basketball by storm.
In fact, the University of Iowa basketball player was selected first in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) Draft.
And yet, like we saw with women’s soccer, the basketball phenom’s salary when she plays for the WNBA will be strikingly less than that of her male counterparts.
At $76,535 annually, Ms. Clark’s salary will amount to $338,056 over the next four years, under the WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement.
This is a fraction of the contract of the San Antonio Spurs’ top pick in last year’s NBA Draft, Victor Wembanyama.
His contract pays him $55 million over four years.
Quite a disparity.
In fact, the WNBA will pay Ms. Clark’s entire team almost the same amount as one random NBA benchwarmer next year.
Photo by Jacob Rice on Unsplash
Now, Before You @ Me…
Of course, the WNBA’s revenue, which is lower than the NBA’s, is a major factor here.
And yet.
In this NYT piece, Lindsay Crouse wrote:
The glass ceiling in women’s sports salaries has been accepted for so long that it’s easy to come up with plausible reasons that the best women are paid so much less than even the average man: lower demand for their games, suboptimal agreements between players and the league, inadequate broadcast deals.
But there are always reasons for blatant inequality.
As Ms. Crouse also noted, “salaries follow the market.”
As we saw in soccer, where the U.S. women’s national team now makes the same as the men’s team, salary parity is achievable only when the public demands it and delivers the ratings to back it up. The more that goes into the pie, the easier it is for players and the league to get more in turn.
Fair. I get it.
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert further explains: “the NBA has around $13 billion in revenue while the WNBA is roughly around $200 million.”
Aren’t The Women in the WNBA Doing the Same Job As the Men in the NBA?
Yes.
In terms of employment law, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA) prohibits pay discrimination based on sex.
If Ms. Clark cared to allege pay discrimination, a form of sex discrimination, she would have to demonstrate that the skill, effort, and responsibility required for her performance equaled those of higher-paid males. Her work need not be identical to the NBA players, just substantially similar.
That said, Caitlyn Clark is doing the same job as an NBA player.
Now, to rebut an EPA claim, an employer would have to prove that a pay differential between similarly situated male and female employees is defensible due to (1) a seniority system; (2) a merit system; (3) a pay system based on quantity or quality of output; or (4) a disparity based on any other factor other than sex.
Just like we saw with Women’s Soccer, I’m reading that the pay difference, i.e., league revenue, collective bargaining agreements, longevity of the (male) league, etc., is based on factors “other than sex.”
In fact, remember that U.S. Soccer responded to the class-action suit by the U.S. Women’s National Team by stating that the men’s and women’s national team negotiated separate collective bargaining agreements, which feature different pay structures.
WNBA games generate less revenue than NBA games and negotiated different deals. That’s the narrative, anyway.
That said, the WNBA has made headway in promoting pay equity in recent years with new labor negotiations—NBA players collectively receive about 50% of the league’s revenue, while WNBA players took home less than 23%. Now, players in the WNBA will receive about 50% under the latest labor deal with the league.
As Caitlin Clark’s star continues to rise on and off the court (with multi-million dollar deals with Nike, Gatorade, and State Farm), this may not be the last we hear about unequal pay in professional sports.
Takeaway
Pay disparity for substantially similar jobs breeds legal action. We’ve seen it in professional tennis, and we’ve seen it in soccer. Will women’s basketball be next?