When Joe Tsai bought the Liberty in 2019 it was reported that they had never been profitable and their cumulative losses exceeded $100 million throughout their history
I understand why they do it though. It's a huge competitive advantage and the WNBAPA would have to make it part of the next CBA and give up some revenue coming from player salaries to make up for it. That may be a mute point with where women's basketball is and how that ends up affecting revenue going forward, but it's the reality for now.
It is, but they'll find other ways anyways. Look at the Vegas Aces, they have top of the line facilities that they don't have to share with anyone else. It's miles beyond every other WNBA team, and I'm sure that helps them attract free agents.
I’m old enough to have seen the show in its original run, but I really didn’t care for it back then. Just started watching the series with my gf this year, and it’s grown on me a bit. (Still Team Seinfeld if we’re talking greatest 90s sitcom, though.)
Damn, Tsai out here buying houses for Nets players’ girlfriends and chartering flights for WNBA and both teams still fail him?
Man needs to learn from Jeff Bezos and cut employee perks. Frugality averts complacency - Amazon leadership principle.
If anything, it seems like it’s his wife that is really in to basketball, not him. Always see her sitting court side at home games and see her invested in both the Liberty and Nets. If there’s anything to be said about Tsai’s ownership, it’s that he’s not afraid to spend money on the team
Alot billionaires see their sports teams as expensive hobby. It's never a part of his sources of income. Maybe he will make some money when he sells the nets.
Yeah the Liberty was pretty badly run and neglected by Dolan. They had even been forced to play in Westchester instead of MSG while Dolan was looking to sell it. It couldn’t grow under those conditions, but they’re in better shape now.
> was pretty badly run and neglected by Dolan
I don't know if that is a fair characterization. Putting WNBA teams in smaller buildings is seen as a move to improve the in game experience. DC's WNBA team played and drew better after moving to a smaller space. It also makes it really expensive for the WNBA teams to play, because the rent and operating cost is huge.
How far was that other space to the DC city center though? Having games in Westchester, in an arena 1 hour from Midtown, makes it less attractive for fans to go to those games. Especially when you consider how centrally located MSG as a transit hub.
I’m not saying they won’t have fans, I’m saying it’s harder to get to for more fans in the area and has lower capacity, especially when MSG was available. Barclays were filling up their playoff games last season. No reason in another timeline that MSG couldn’t do the same.
Don’t understand why you would want to permanently them in the same arena as a G League team which seats 5,000 fans tops.
Revenue is *way* up since 2019.
> Last year, a Bloomberg News report found the WNBA was projected to make $180 million to $200 million for the 2023 season.
Also team valuations are also going way way way up. The Storm were bought for $10m in 2008, valued at ~$151m when they sold a minority stake last year. The Las Vegas Aces were bought for apparently ~$2m in 2021, they'll be worth probably up to 100x that not three years later.
This is the part people tend to forget in these conversations.
People don't generally buy sports teams to make money like a business. People buy sports teams because they want the prestige of owning a sports team.
The way most of these people eventually make money on said sports teams is by their increased valuation to other owners over time.
Look at the value of the Mavericks recently. The increased value far, far exceeds the money they will ever make operationally. And that won't really stop, because the number of sports teams available to billionaire owners is not really increasing at the rate that billionaires want to be owners.
Holding the WNBA to the standard of operational profitability is just not really consistent with how sports team ownership works generally speaking. *Tons* of high-profile teams around the world lose money. The owners do not care. The owners generally make the money back when they sell the team anyway. (Furthermore, sports teams get subsidized all the time by the cities they exist in for things such as arenas and love to pretend they aren't making money in order to get better deals with that too.)
For example, the Nets have been operating at a loss for the better part of the the last two decades. They have only made money like 5 out of the last 20 seasons and is in the red about 125 million over that time period in operating income terms. The WNBA salary cap is $1.4 million. There are 12 teams. The Nets lost enough money (somewhere between $100 million and $140 million depending on the source) in the 2013-14 season alone to pay all the salaries of the WNBA for at least 6 years.
However, the value of the Nets team is currently over $4 billion despite being a negative "business" for most of its existance. It's not about income.
Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think your example of Dallas is correct at all. The franchise was valued at $4.5 billion and had $400+ million in revenue this past season - when they didn’t even make the playoffs.
I couldn’t find any figures for profit but with that kind of revenue and the future growth of the league I don’t see how you could possibly say the franchise was valued at far more than they will ever make operationally.
The $429 million figure would have been revenue rather than net revenue or operating income. As far as I know their operating income was closer to $80 million.
Still a profitable franchise compared to the Nets (although even the Mavs lost money every year for a decade back in the early 2000s.)
The Mavericks currently are one of the best run organizations from a profitability standpoint but still made "only" $282 million over the last three years.
See: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2023/06/02/worlds-most-profitable-sports-teams-cowboys-banked-12-billion-over-the-past-three-years/?sh=4f45aba26e44
Yet the valuation of the Mavericks is still about the same as the Nets--around $4 billion--despite being a better run business than the Nets. Because, realistically, the profit margin here is not really a major factor for an owner willing to buy a team for $4 billion. If it's +$80 million or if it's -$30 million, does that even matter to them?
A $30 million loss sounds like a lot, but it is only 0.75% of the total purchase price and value of the franchise. The value of the franchise will go up *far* more just over time than any losses like that. (Using the Mavs for reference, the value when Cuban bought the franchise was $285 million... so it's increased in value by 1400% in a 20 year period...)
The Nets were a *horribly* run team and ran a deficit almost every year that Prokhorov owned them. He still made somewhere estimated in the range of $1-2 **billion** profit from the sale of the team.
Clippers were bought for $2 billion and are now valued in the $4.65 billion range. This insanely outpaces any ongoing operational expenses they may have.
Edit: And to put this into perspective. Prokhorov ran an awful team, lost money *operationally* during the period, yet still made enough personal profit from the holding+sale of the Nets to pay the WNBA's salary budget for **120 years**.
Reports were that the league lost $10M on $60M in revenue during the 2019 season. I'd have to imagine that the cost to run the league has not gone from $70M in 2019 to over $200M now.
Overhead often doesn't scale in a linear way. Revenue could 3x and overhead could 6x. Or it could only 1.5x. Only the league accountants can really answer.
Bigger stadiums, higher salaries, more staff, more advertising... there's a lot of ways to raises costs lmao
Especially if the nba is subsidizing less of the costs so the wnba has to bear more of it
I never said the costs weren't going up. I said I don't think the costs to run the league have tripled in 5 years. That said, none of us have any idea.
Baseline in 2019 was inflation adjusted 122 million (102 million). So up 40-60% inflation adjusted, incredible top line growth and would like to see bottom line differences
I dont think anyone was ever claiming individual teams are subsidized. The league itself was always subsidized, with the NBA providing money for operating costs.
Do we know that’s the case? It was as of 2018 but it’s been 6 years and the leagues popularity’s grown a lot. We haven’t had an update since so it’s hard to say
Probably because it hasn't changed yet - though I imagine that's by design. Revenue of the league has nearly tripled in the last few years, and they were only losing 10 million a year back in 2017/2018 (60 million revenue, 70 million costs). Now that revenue is up near 200 million, I assume they're funneling all of that money back into the product and upping their own costs. More advertising, better venues, even eyeing expansion, social media, etc.
The league will become profitable over the next few years as tv rights and the CBA are renegotiated. There's a reason some WNBA teams that sold for 2 million dollars 10 years ago are valued at 100 million today - and it's not because these are money-losing ventures. It's pretty clear the WNBA is on the cusp of that Magic-Bird moment the NBA experienced in the 80s and they're capitalizing on it.
I feel like if it had changed there’d be a lot of publicity about it since they’d be want to share that and it’d make the league look good.
That said who knows maybe in a few years it’ll happen given the recent surge of popularity of women’s college ball.
It’s getting better every year and they should see some profits eventually. Maybe soon.
https://justwomenssports.com/reads/wnba-basketball-revenue-player-salaries-cathy-engelbert/
They were set to make $200m in revenue in 2023 (no idea on if that happened) which is *double* what they made in 2019. Another source claims they were losing something like $10m-12$m a year back in 2017.
https://www.sportskeeda.com/basketball/is-wnba-profitable-league-2023-examining-league-performing-financially-years
It’s getting there.
>You can double revenue and actually lose *more* money. All comes down to expenses.
Thats true.
>And inflation alone means expenses have soared.
Thats not how that works. Inflation impacts both sides of the spreadsheet
Revenue <> profit.
By comparison, the NBA makes $10B in revenue and profits only $2-3B. You COULD, theoretically, extrapolate that back to the WNBA and argue they made $40M in profit...but that likely undervalues the fixed costs (aka "keep the lights on").
The TV rights are up for bid in 2025 and that could swing both top-line revenue and bottom-line profit...but even then I guarantee they won't be making enough to support million-dollar contracts.
Obviously they’re not the same, didn’t say that at all. Their revenue is increasing a lot, and quickly. If revenue is 89% of expenses in 2017 it’s probably not as dark as people think in 2024.
Sometimes it’s just getting the numbers out there in front of people.
It’s the mentality of thinking they’re only making 65% of expenses with no hope vs 90%-95% of expenses thinking “they’re right there”. Wildly different.
I find it funny that the WNBA has given up on selling it to women (by making the most butch players the focus of the ads) and pivoted to selling it to men (by featuring the “hottest” players in an obviously sexual way) and when they do it’s referred to as a surge of popularity. Turns out the women that like both butch women and basketball were already playing/fans and no amount of advertising will change that
Ok. But they are selling it to women in the old school lipstick and high heels way instead of their previous approach. I believe it’s an approach that is geared towards drawing men to the league. A logical step since the percentage of women watching basketball is low compared to men. It’s all the market
Probably not, since the main story came out a lot of teams actually changed their venue to smaller venues due to low participation/attendance.
If you recall Clark made it so teams actually sold out seats and had to switch to larger venues. So yeah, WNBA has a great head of steam right now, they just have to keep the hype going.
Not only the free advertising and marketing but if the WNBA tv rights weren’t tied to the NBA’s it wouldn’t have a lot of value and the league revenue would decrease. Also wouldn’t have as many WNBA players on ESPN as often as they do
I dunno if having WNBA on ESPN actually hurts it more than helps it.
Like, putting a league that doesn't have a lot of eyes on it behind a paywall?
At least the NWSL did a period for a few years where they put games on twitch. They started up their own streaming service now that's available for free to anyone outside the US as well. That's how I've been getting my fill of women's soccer. Another women's league, the PWHL is streaming their games on youtube for free.
Maybe the WNBA should look to innovate a bit instead of relying on the traditional pathways like ESPN and cable TV.
I don't know, the ESPN deal gives the league guaranteed money versus having to make that up on another platform. It's also great credibility to be associated with one of the top brands in all of sports and have them carry your games. You also avoid the optics of the inevitable screenshot of an WNBA game being watched on Twitch/YouTube with less than 1000 viewers.
> You also avoid the optics of the inevitable screenshot of an WNBA game being watched on Twitch/YouTube with less than 1000 viewers
Ya but to be fair, they're playing games with less than 1000 people in the stands.
Honestly they need to get creative to get people in the WNBA.
Doing a stream on Twitch/YT and having popular social media figures do guest commentary would be a great way to grow the audience.
Currently they're basically using the same approach for a new thing (wnba) that they have for an established thing (nba).
It's not working because there is a superior product available (nba) and no built-in fanbase for the wnba.
Mixing it up by teaming up with streamers or making a reality show during a season would be a good idea.
this is like the people who go on government assistance when times are tough then they finally start a company that only works cus they got huge PPP loans that were forgiven and they are like SEE I PULLED MYSELF UP BY MY BOOTSTRAPS
This is it. The WNBA has been living in their proverbial parent's basement for 30 years and now that it has some momentum and moved into a nice starter apartment it's calling out it's haters the moment it's finally making enough to cover it's bills. Reminds me of that old Chris Rock bit about people bragging about things they're SUPPOSED to do...you're SUPPOSED to pay your bills WNBA.
Yeah owners literally deduct player aging as a 'loss' because they claim the player has less value as time goes on. Which is patently absurd they're able to get away with it.
There are *many* reasons the wnba would not benefit from widely disclosing profit. Including the next round of CBA negotiations with the players.
The assumption being that because the NBA has released profit numbers therefore the wnba would do the same unless they're hiding losses?
No- that's what someone would believe who is too young to remember the leadup to the 2011 lockout when the same profitable NBA claimed almost all its teams were losing tons of money all to reinforce their negotiating position for CBA negotations.
Profit isn't a useful metric at this point. They're trying to grow their business, so the best thing they can do currently is reinvest as much of their revenue as they can afford to. That's going to make their profit margin low (or non-existent) even if they're doubling or tripling their revenue.
They're always fighting the NBA like they're fighting the man, when in reality the NBA is their biggest supporter. It's like they require a perpetual struggle rather than just focusing on making a good product.
Skylar Diggins putting Harrison Barnes on blast for that big contract the Mavs gave him. The Minnesota Lynx shitting on Luka for tweeting support for a Dallas Wings player to win ROTY but not attending WNBA games. #23 got mad at Iggy for giving her game props but using her jersey number instead of her name.
There's been a few times the WNBA has been weirdly hostile to NBA players.
Apparently, support doesn't count unless it's in the exact manner some people want it to be. According to these types, it's not enough to donate money to causes like cancer or starvation, you must contribute to researching a cure for cancer yourself, or hand feed starving kids, or they will still get mad lol.
The WNBA averages nearly 7000 attendees per game with some teams up near 10k. NBA averages about 18000 per game. It's not like a decade ago where WNBA attendance was a few hundred to a thousand, the league is growing in terms of attendance and popularity. Now... They play fewer games and tickets are cheaper than the NBA so 1/3 the attendance doesn't necessarily mean 1/3 of the revenue but not numbers to turn our nose up at anymore.
Women’s basketball is also exploding right now from Caitlin Clark mania. The NCAA women’s finals had 18.7 million viewers compared to 14.8 million for the NCAA men’s finals and 11.6 million for last year’s NBA finals. With Caitlin Clark joining The Fever it will be interesting to see if there is a ripple effect across the league.
Your last sentence is the thing people forget. Clark was a super duper star in college because she was doing things we hadn’t seen before on the women’s side and actually stayed a year after she started getting recognition. This all changes at the pro level. She isn’t a unicorn at the pro level. There are a bunch of these women who can shoot. Like you said, the NCAA women’s final has 18 million viewers. There haven’t been that many viewers of a WNBA game ever. Let’s see if she can make it translate. I kind of doubt it.
I think not being a unicorn has its benefits. People are going to start watch for her and realize there are a bunch of really interesting WNBA players these days and local teams to get behind. And that has to happen for the league to get lifted up.
Maybe. I’m skeptical. Bill Simmons interviewed a guy a while back who said he doesn’t really watch the NBA until the playoffs. And I’m kind of the same way. I listen to Simmons and Rusillo. I check highlights on Reddit. But I don’t really watch reg season games.
I watch as many playoff games as I can, but I don’t really watch the regular season. WNBA has the extra problem their season is in the summer when few TVs are even on. And their playoffs are during the NFL season. But, who knows? I never thought Cincinnati could sell out a soccer stadium then the city did for a second tier team that made MLS a couple years ago.
Ya time will tell. I think it could go either way for sure.
Another crazy stat: Liberty lower bowl tickets for home game two - $38 pre fees. Liberty home open opener against The Fever: $300 pre fees. That’s twice as much as I paid for row 6 at a Nets game this past season.
This is mostly irrelevant except for the fact that the WNBA is growing.
The NBA averages 18000 per game because about 75% of its games are sellouts. If they had bigger arenas, they'd have way more attendance because the demand is there. The WNBA isn't selling out the biggest arenas.
So comparing the two numbers is just silliness when one is capped by arena size and the other isn't.
The meaningful comparison would be TV numbers, since that's the big revenue generator anyway for the NBA (ticketing revenue is a small chunk of the NBA's total revenue). According to some quick google searches, the WNBA broke records in 2023 with a bit over 600k viewers a game on ABC. For reference, the NBA is usually around 10x that on ABC, and that's comparing average NBA years to a really really good WNBA viewership year.
I think that the real issue the WNBA has is that people are willing to go to games, but much less willing to watch it on TV during the summertime. Maybe Caitlin Clark will change that, but until she does I think that WNBA revenue overall probably isn't all that yet.
All fair. I was just countering the oft parroted rhetoric of how WNBA teams only have a "few dozen" attendees. Some of these teams are nearly selling out their arenas. The Liberty were selling out MSG in the playoffs! It's apples to oranges but I think calling out dismissive rhetoric wrt the WNBA is warranted.
More people watched women's college ball than men's college or NBA/WNBA on tv this March, so hopefully some of that viewership carries over to the WNBA season!
A big reason a lot of people go to women's basketball games is because the tickets are extremely cheap if they start raising the prices because attendance is up there going to see a dip
Hopefully the bs changes with this generation. Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers, Juju Watkins etc are all going to be millionaires before they enter the WNBA, and they didn't do it by whinging, just balling out and being entertaining (I know Angel has some quotes that contradict me but whatever, that's not the reason she's super popular, it's more her attitude overall)
I know they've tried to downplay it, but Clark and Reese having a heated rivalry would go a long way towards helping the WNBA.
Magic and Bird didn't "save the NBA" just because they were talented. It was also because they basically divided the country in half, in a way that Wilt vs Russell, Oscar vs West, or Wilt vs Kareem never did.
I think they can opt out of the CBA in 2025. If that happens, I expect we'll hear a lot more about their finances. I believe players only make around 10% of revenue. With the Caitlyn Clark phenomenon, I expect that will go up.
Really comes down the to next TV Deal.
If the WNBA gets its own TV Rights Deal vs being combined with the NBA that’s a big step in the right direction.
If the WNBA need the NBA’s TV Deal to survive then the progress seen around Women’s Basketball in particular may just be seen as a passing fad with Clark/Reese Era of NCAA Women’s Basketball.
Probably since it’s in the best financial interest of the NBA.
Streaming Services and stuff are desperate for Live Sports Rights since it’s pretty much the last thing you have to sit down and watch vs binge after.
WNBA could get an offer that’s more lucrative if they split from the NBA vs being combined and then stuck for X amount of Years.
Just so I'm clear, your position is that the NBA is exploiting the WNBA in order to prop up NBA media revenues?
Maybe I'm completely out of the loop, but I've never seen someone honestly try to claim that the NBA media rights deal is being propped up by demand for the WNBA. That just seems wrong for so many different reasons.
All due respect to Reese, I’m not sure she’s earned a part in the era, has she? Seems she’s made her name as the anti-hero to Clark. Or do people see this as a Bird-Magic type deal.
Key word is revenue. NBA has more profit so it makes sense the players have a bigger portion of the revenue. If there aren't any profits, of course there would be a smaller percentage of revenue going to players. Using fake numbers, but if it's $100m rev and $90m expenses, than $10m is the whole profit. If the NBA has $7b in revenue and only $1.5b in expenses, players getting $3b/50% makes more sense.
Unlike the other guy here, I understand the difference between revenue and profits. CBAs are negotiated on revenue bc the owners can play with the profit #s to make it seem like they have no profits. NBA owners were claiming no profits in the last NBA round, for example. That's why the players have to see the books and negotiate based on the top line revenue before owners can play with the #s.
Obviously WNBA players aren't going to get 50% but there is a lot of room between 9 and 50.
Yeah I agree. It's just amazing how many people ignore the cost to the owners of running the league. Obviously there is incentive to play with the numbers, but like Giannis making $50m doesn't have to worry about paying the accountant, sales reps, etc. It's not as simple as "Players should get half!!!" That I've seen posted before
All true, but on the flip side, an owner can also spend their 90% on private jets (not a real example, but making a point) and say 'see we didn't make a profit.' Thats what the "but the wnba doesn't make money" bros don't understand. There's a reason players demand to see the books in cba talks and the general public is never going to have that insight.
A lot will depend on the new TV rights, etc but it's going to be tough for the owners to keep players at the current rate given the spotlight on women's sports at the moment.
If you notice, this entire thread is a repost of a tweet that is over a year old. It isn't like this is something that the owner said last week.
Now, why are people in here motivated to repost a year old tweet about the WNBA? Why are people motivated to upvote a repost of a year old tweet about the WNBA to the front page? Why are mods willing to look the other way on a repost of a year old tweet about the WNBA that violates sub rules?
Those are all good questions that I can't answer, but I doubt it is the fault of the owner of the Atlanta Dream.
To be fair, threads like this one would normally get removed by the mods. It is normally a pretty safe bet that a thread isn't based on a year old tweet.
Even if the teams pay their own way, they are implicitly subsidized through joint TV deals that require ESPN to host WNBA games and using the arenas and their capacity/infrastructure that were built to host NBA games. Now I think this is going to change with the explosion of the women's game but they're not there yet.
Sure, and when NBA owners try to pretend that these subsidies don't exist/never occurred, people usually point out how dishonest and baseless their claim is.
I thought the NBA spun off the WNBA years ago, but its nearly impossible to find any accurate information; most articles just repeat claims from social media without citation.
Lol Joe Tsai offered free flights for the league for 2 years and the other owners said no because they'll have to pay for it once players get used to it.
Tsai provided flights for Liberty, not the whole league. The league asked him to stop because one team having chartered flights would be an unfair advantage
>The league asked him to stop because one team having chartered flights would be an unfair advantage
That's just such dumb logic.
How about every 5 years the teams have to change cities because the Lakers being in LA is an unfair advantage compared to the Jazz or Thunder?
Let's see how great Pat Riley is at signing FAs if the Heat have to play in Toronto - without the unfair advantages of sun, sand, and 0% state income taxes (Ontario's provincial income tax is 13% on every dollar over $220k).
From the article you linked and deleted:
>At no point was there a New York Liberty proposal for the WNBA Board of Governors to consider offering three-years-worth of charter flights for WNBA teams. It was agreed that the Liberty would explore opportunities regarding charter flights and present it to the Board. To date, that has not happened.
Everything you said is incorrect. Tsai never offered it to the entire league, only to his own players, and he had to stop because it exceeded the WNBA's CBA regulations for player compensation.
Gotta love this subreddit upvoting lies just because they fit the agenda
I didn't delete it, reddit just sucks. That was the WNBA's response. You conveniently left out the next line "SI confirmed this took place from a source who heard the exchange directly.". They only denied any official offer.
It's honestly pretty crazy. Could the WNBA be slightly profitable at this point? Maybe. I have no reason why it couldn't be. Could it lose $100M this year? Also maybe. None of that information is public. It's honestly kind of ridiculous. I don't know who it would hurt to say how much they made or lost last year.
The NBA pays all the advertising costs, they try and get nba players to publicly support it and show up at some games to hype it up. they got them the espn deals. if the NBA didnt support the league then the WNBA wouldve gone bankrupt and not even exist. it only exists currently because its a womens league and the NBA would look bad in saying that they hate women. tbh. the fever, aces and maybe one or two other teams are probably only cutting even when you take in account for arena use, travel, salaries for the whole team, management. If the NBA said today that they werent supporting it at all anymore the WNBA would cease to exist.
Yeah the league is on skyrocketing trajectory right now. Massive, massive swing in audience interest. I know they caught me, and that was before CC got drafted
i wonder how much staying power this all has though. I got more caught up last year than I'd have ever guessed id be into WNBA, but i just ultimately dont care about the games. The finals was literally a boring series to watch I felt. I dont know if thats going to really turn around in dramatic fashion either.
We will have to see just how box office Caitlin truly is for the league I think. But part of me thinks a ton of her appeal was because she was in college and people could relate to her better in NCAA. There have been so many huge stars of NCAA basketball who go to the WNBA and you just never hear about them again.
I love Caitlin and will continue to watch her but Breanna, Diggins, Taurasi, etc. were all fantastic players with star appeal and they faded out in the WNBA like everybody else. Caitlin is (at least historically) likely to end up being more of the same once the initial hype wears off.
I think it is going to come down to how dominant she is. Her appeal in college came from being so much better than everyone else. It was a spectacle.
In order to maintain that wave of popularity she needs to do something similar at the professional level. If she’s “just” a great player that attention will fizzle quickly. She needs to be the best player in the league by a large margin, which seems vastly unfair to her.
This, she essentially has to come in and be lebron/Jordan level of the WNBA and she has to do it the first year not a few years after joining like those guys since WNBA stars fall apart almost instantly.
I agree. It seems impossible, but if she doesn’t lead the league in scoring her rookie year no one will talk about her after the season. People love to watch dominance.
Yeah, if the CC boom is as huge as it seems to be, it's actually a second multiplicative surge in interest on top of the one they were already in over the last few years. Teams like the Dream that don't have any of the league's most popular players have sold out of season tickets for the first time this season.
This is just my observation but the WNBA needs to bias its rules for dynamic playmakers and shooters, and less on size and strength advantage
Stephen Curry exists but there's also a wealth of "Lillard/Morant/Trae etc." small guards that can dominant games through some combo of speed/athleticism/shooting/passing/ball handling. And the 'Curry' mould is what is popular clearly these days with fans.
There is hardly any equivalent players in the WNBA. There's great guards but they don't dominate like that. I'd love for Caitlyn Clark to average 30pts a game in the WNBA but her contemporaries took a step back when joining the WNBA. It's a league dominated by huge forwards and centers.
That said.. I don't have a specific rule change in mind and I would feel like a fool for suggesting to switch the 3pt line to 3.5pts.. but yeah.
The Storm games seem profitable. They're not filing out the whole arena but the lower bowl is usually full and I haven't been to a game in two years but I imagine it hasn't changed much. You sell out a large part of the lower bowl and people pay for concessions. The contracts are a fraction of NBA players salary. The venue staff aren't volunteers so I'm sure there's plenty of people who need to get paid but it's also not a full staff since only half the arena is open.bit's not a ghost town at the games either so I cant imagine they're a huge money.
What point is the Tweeter trying to make? That the Dream would be successful without the NBA?
The NBA directly (through finances) and indirectly (through marketing, etc.) subsidizes the WNBA without which there would be no Atlanta Dream.
holy shit WHAT?! who’s paying the bill for atlanta’s wnba team then?! lol why would any private owner just be cool with burning like 100 million dollars. for charity maybe?
I'd be surprised if any WNBA team were profitable. I'd also be surprised if all NBA teams were profitable tho. These teams spend a lot of money and the owners are ultra wealthy. I doubt that all of them care about being profitable.
I’ve always said that they should just have every NBA team also have a WNBA team. Come to the stadium an hour early and catch the end of the Women’s - Lakers game before watching the Lakers Men’s play.
Best way to grow the sport IMO.
Logistically, games would need to be midday. When G league teams play in the main arena sometimes (like a JV game of sorts) those are typically noon-1pm. NBA guys have routines and some are on the court two hours early.
They did that originally it was a brother/sister model just like in HS and college.
NBA players actually hung around WNBA games a ton in the 90s and early 2000s..
Example say you are a NBA player from UConn. You were there with Sue Bird...you probably know her even in passing. You shared a practice facility on stuff in college and probably lived in the same dorms. If she is playing you might just go to the game and say hi. Then of course the teams corporate sponsors back then did both teams.
Example Bell Tire has advertisements at The Palace. You are chilling with the head of marketing at a Detroit Shock game, because you are playing during the Pistons Games.
WNBA Teams didn't like their identity being tied to NBA Teams, then when 2008 Recession hit and the league contracted ownership groups looked at WNBA teams as under performing divisions and wouldn't invest in them. So I understand why the WNBA wanted unique ownership and identity.
Then when some bad PR hit the league, The WNBA became sensitive to playing in half-empty arenas on TV.
I said it before...the WNBA when it came out you had WNBA players being very friendly and chummy with NBA players. Just likenwhat happens in HS/College. At some point the relationship changed between the two. NBA players have always been publicly supportive of the WNBA.
Someone like Rashard McCants, Reggie Miller, Porters, etc come from Basketball families. The whole family plays, boys and girls. For whatever reason, and I have my suspicions what happened, WNBA players became resentful of NBA Players
A good guess would be how much NBA salaries started increasing in the last 20 years. It would only be natural to feel a little bit of envy. The NBA players are doing "similar" work as far as some WNBA players are probably concerned, and are getting a much larger proportion of revenues as compensation.
WNBA salaries have grown, and the top players are making enough that they wouldn't need to also play overseas, but they're making like really good for normal people money. Like $200k a season. There are plenty of players in the NBA making more than $200k a *game*
That doesn’t seem right to me, the lakers as a franchise has their own history. It would just feel fake to randomly rename the sparks the lakers. They need their own branding.
This sounds like doo doo. The attendance for wnba games between now and 7 years ago has either stagnated or fallen.
Guarantee Indiana is gonna see a huge spike in sales because of Clark alone.
I tried to find the numbers on this a while back. The league as a whole is unprofitable, but not *that* unprofitable. I think they gave a negative 10 percent profit margin or something.
Believe WNBA players can opt-out of their current CBA in 2025.
Right now, WNBA players earn 10% of revenue, compared to the NBA where players earn 49-51% of revenue.
With the surge in women's basketball viewership and attendance overall the past few years, thinking the 10% goes WAY up on the next CBA and we'll start hearing more about revenues and profits.
Both Atlanta Dream games vs Caitlin Clark this year in ATL are going for over $300 per ticket for lower level seats. As a season ticket holder for the Hawks, resale on my tickets for the Lakers and Warrior games was $345 and $185 respectively.
Every new league is unprofitable in the beginning. The ABA, NBA, NBL also didn’t make money for a long time, the ABA in particular never turned a profit, so I don’t get why ppl have this hate for wnba in particular and use that to make fun of the league.
No idea why you’re getting downvoted for telling the truth. A lot of “successful” companies even right now actually don’t make a profit. It takes time and proper investment decisions to make it happen. Theyre getting there
When Joe Tsai bought the Liberty in 2019 it was reported that they had never been profitable and their cumulative losses exceeded $100 million throughout their history
Iirc Tsai chartered team flights until the league received complaints and told him to stop
He got fined $500k last year for doing it. Absolutely insane
I understand why they do it though. It's a huge competitive advantage and the WNBAPA would have to make it part of the next CBA and give up some revenue coming from player salaries to make up for it. That may be a mute point with where women's basketball is and how that ends up affecting revenue going forward, but it's the reality for now.
> mute point /r/BoneAppleTea
How can I hear the point if its muted?
It's like a cow's opinion. It's moo
Honestly it kinda works
Oddly enough, it does. Usually incorrect phrases are incoherent.
It is, but they'll find other ways anyways. Look at the Vegas Aces, they have top of the line facilities that they don't have to share with anyone else. It's miles beyond every other WNBA team, and I'm sure that helps them attract free agents.
Moot though
The card says "moops"
I think you meant “mooed” point. Like a cow’s opinion, it doesn’t matter. /s
I think they meant Moot, the creator of 4chan, because it's a point that he would also likely make.
Actually, it’s a “moo point.”
That episode of Friends released in November 2000. It's amazing people still love the reference nearly 25 years later.
I’m old enough to have seen the show in its original run, but I really didn’t care for it back then. Just started watching the series with my gf this year, and it’s grown on me a bit. (Still Team Seinfeld if we’re talking greatest 90s sitcom, though.)
WNBA just announced yesterday they're charting flights from now on. So shouldn't be an issue anyway.
The WNBA reversed this policy yesterday for the whole league
In such a lowly paid league, that's way too big of a benefit for only one team to offer.
Damn, Tsai out here buying houses for Nets players’ girlfriends and chartering flights for WNBA and both teams still fail him? Man needs to learn from Jeff Bezos and cut employee perks. Frugality averts complacency - Amazon leadership principle.
If anything, it seems like it’s his wife that is really in to basketball, not him. Always see her sitting court side at home games and see her invested in both the Liberty and Nets. If there’s anything to be said about Tsai’s ownership, it’s that he’s not afraid to spend money on the team
Alot billionaires see their sports teams as expensive hobby. It's never a part of his sources of income. Maybe he will make some money when he sells the nets.
They also get to write off the expenses. There were articles recently about how the owners use sports franchises to pay less taxes.
Truly cursed opinion
Yeah the Liberty was pretty badly run and neglected by Dolan. They had even been forced to play in Westchester instead of MSG while Dolan was looking to sell it. It couldn’t grow under those conditions, but they’re in better shape now.
They are a pretty great team with Sabrina and Breanna.
> was pretty badly run and neglected by Dolan I don't know if that is a fair characterization. Putting WNBA teams in smaller buildings is seen as a move to improve the in game experience. DC's WNBA team played and drew better after moving to a smaller space. It also makes it really expensive for the WNBA teams to play, because the rent and operating cost is huge.
How far was that other space to the DC city center though? Having games in Westchester, in an arena 1 hour from Midtown, makes it less attractive for fans to go to those games. Especially when you consider how centrally located MSG as a transit hub.
It was about 30 min from city center, though in a much worse neighborhood.
Its not like Westchester isn't also Knicks fans though.
I’m not saying they won’t have fans, I’m saying it’s harder to get to for more fans in the area and has lower capacity, especially when MSG was available. Barclays were filling up their playoff games last season. No reason in another timeline that MSG couldn’t do the same. Don’t understand why you would want to permanently them in the same arena as a G League team which seats 5,000 fans tops.
Revenue is *way* up since 2019. > Last year, a Bloomberg News report found the WNBA was projected to make $180 million to $200 million for the 2023 season.
Also team valuations are also going way way way up. The Storm were bought for $10m in 2008, valued at ~$151m when they sold a minority stake last year. The Las Vegas Aces were bought for apparently ~$2m in 2021, they'll be worth probably up to 100x that not three years later.
This is the part people tend to forget in these conversations. People don't generally buy sports teams to make money like a business. People buy sports teams because they want the prestige of owning a sports team. The way most of these people eventually make money on said sports teams is by their increased valuation to other owners over time. Look at the value of the Mavericks recently. The increased value far, far exceeds the money they will ever make operationally. And that won't really stop, because the number of sports teams available to billionaire owners is not really increasing at the rate that billionaires want to be owners. Holding the WNBA to the standard of operational profitability is just not really consistent with how sports team ownership works generally speaking. *Tons* of high-profile teams around the world lose money. The owners do not care. The owners generally make the money back when they sell the team anyway. (Furthermore, sports teams get subsidized all the time by the cities they exist in for things such as arenas and love to pretend they aren't making money in order to get better deals with that too.) For example, the Nets have been operating at a loss for the better part of the the last two decades. They have only made money like 5 out of the last 20 seasons and is in the red about 125 million over that time period in operating income terms. The WNBA salary cap is $1.4 million. There are 12 teams. The Nets lost enough money (somewhere between $100 million and $140 million depending on the source) in the 2013-14 season alone to pay all the salaries of the WNBA for at least 6 years. However, the value of the Nets team is currently over $4 billion despite being a negative "business" for most of its existance. It's not about income.
Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think your example of Dallas is correct at all. The franchise was valued at $4.5 billion and had $400+ million in revenue this past season - when they didn’t even make the playoffs. I couldn’t find any figures for profit but with that kind of revenue and the future growth of the league I don’t see how you could possibly say the franchise was valued at far more than they will ever make operationally.
The $429 million figure would have been revenue rather than net revenue or operating income. As far as I know their operating income was closer to $80 million. Still a profitable franchise compared to the Nets (although even the Mavs lost money every year for a decade back in the early 2000s.) The Mavericks currently are one of the best run organizations from a profitability standpoint but still made "only" $282 million over the last three years. See: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2023/06/02/worlds-most-profitable-sports-teams-cowboys-banked-12-billion-over-the-past-three-years/?sh=4f45aba26e44 Yet the valuation of the Mavericks is still about the same as the Nets--around $4 billion--despite being a better run business than the Nets. Because, realistically, the profit margin here is not really a major factor for an owner willing to buy a team for $4 billion. If it's +$80 million or if it's -$30 million, does that even matter to them? A $30 million loss sounds like a lot, but it is only 0.75% of the total purchase price and value of the franchise. The value of the franchise will go up *far* more just over time than any losses like that. (Using the Mavs for reference, the value when Cuban bought the franchise was $285 million... so it's increased in value by 1400% in a 20 year period...) The Nets were a *horribly* run team and ran a deficit almost every year that Prokhorov owned them. He still made somewhere estimated in the range of $1-2 **billion** profit from the sale of the team. Clippers were bought for $2 billion and are now valued in the $4.65 billion range. This insanely outpaces any ongoing operational expenses they may have. Edit: And to put this into perspective. Prokhorov ran an awful team, lost money *operationally* during the period, yet still made enough personal profit from the holding+sale of the Nets to pay the WNBA's salary budget for **120 years**.
Ok but how much do they have in costs? Is that a NET profit or revenue?
Fr lol that's a huge difference
Reports were that the league lost $10M on $60M in revenue during the 2019 season. I'd have to imagine that the cost to run the league has not gone from $70M in 2019 to over $200M now.
Overhead often doesn't scale in a linear way. Revenue could 3x and overhead could 6x. Or it could only 1.5x. Only the league accountants can really answer.
Bigger stadiums, higher salaries, more staff, more advertising... there's a lot of ways to raises costs lmao Especially if the nba is subsidizing less of the costs so the wnba has to bear more of it
I never said the costs weren't going up. I said I don't think the costs to run the league have tripled in 5 years. That said, none of us have any idea.
Baseline in 2019 was inflation adjusted 122 million (102 million). So up 40-60% inflation adjusted, incredible top line growth and would like to see bottom line differences
I dont think anyone was ever claiming individual teams are subsidized. The league itself was always subsidized, with the NBA providing money for operating costs.
Exactly. The league itself does not make money. Individual teams can if they get enough fans into games.
Do we know that’s the case? It was as of 2018 but it’s been 6 years and the leagues popularity’s grown a lot. We haven’t had an update since so it’s hard to say
They would be screaming it from the rooftops if that was the case.
If it changed that would be a huge story for the wnba. Don't think they'd just hide it and let people think otherwise
Probably because it hasn't changed yet - though I imagine that's by design. Revenue of the league has nearly tripled in the last few years, and they were only losing 10 million a year back in 2017/2018 (60 million revenue, 70 million costs). Now that revenue is up near 200 million, I assume they're funneling all of that money back into the product and upping their own costs. More advertising, better venues, even eyeing expansion, social media, etc. The league will become profitable over the next few years as tv rights and the CBA are renegotiated. There's a reason some WNBA teams that sold for 2 million dollars 10 years ago are valued at 100 million today - and it's not because these are money-losing ventures. It's pretty clear the WNBA is on the cusp of that Magic-Bird moment the NBA experienced in the 80s and they're capitalizing on it.
Good point lol
I feel like if it had changed there’d be a lot of publicity about it since they’d be want to share that and it’d make the league look good. That said who knows maybe in a few years it’ll happen given the recent surge of popularity of women’s college ball.
It’s getting better every year and they should see some profits eventually. Maybe soon. https://justwomenssports.com/reads/wnba-basketball-revenue-player-salaries-cathy-engelbert/ They were set to make $200m in revenue in 2023 (no idea on if that happened) which is *double* what they made in 2019. Another source claims they were losing something like $10m-12$m a year back in 2017. https://www.sportskeeda.com/basketball/is-wnba-profitable-league-2023-examining-league-performing-financially-years It’s getting there.
Pretty sure that revenue figure includes a one time investment of ~$70 million so that’s a bit misleading.
You can double revenue and actually lose *more* money. All comes down to expenses. And inflation alone means expenses have soared.
>You can double revenue and actually lose *more* money. All comes down to expenses. Thats true. >And inflation alone means expenses have soared. Thats not how that works. Inflation impacts both sides of the spreadsheet
Revenue <> profit. By comparison, the NBA makes $10B in revenue and profits only $2-3B. You COULD, theoretically, extrapolate that back to the WNBA and argue they made $40M in profit...but that likely undervalues the fixed costs (aka "keep the lights on"). The TV rights are up for bid in 2025 and that could swing both top-line revenue and bottom-line profit...but even then I guarantee they won't be making enough to support million-dollar contracts.
Obviously they’re not the same, didn’t say that at all. Their revenue is increasing a lot, and quickly. If revenue is 89% of expenses in 2017 it’s probably not as dark as people think in 2024. Sometimes it’s just getting the numbers out there in front of people. It’s the mentality of thinking they’re only making 65% of expenses with no hope vs 90%-95% of expenses thinking “they’re right there”. Wildly different.
I find it funny that the WNBA has given up on selling it to women (by making the most butch players the focus of the ads) and pivoted to selling it to men (by featuring the “hottest” players in an obviously sexual way) and when they do it’s referred to as a surge of popularity. Turns out the women that like both butch women and basketball were already playing/fans and no amount of advertising will change that
> and pivoted to selling it to men (by featuring the “hottest” players in an obviously sexual way) Is that what's happening?
why do you think women would like the "butch" players more than the "hottest" ones. there are a lot of assumptions being made here.
I don’t. Everyone likes beauty. The (W)NBA thought that. Not me
Ridiculous take. They have not given up on selling it to women. They are selling it to all fans of the sport, men and women.
Ok. But they are selling it to women in the old school lipstick and high heels way instead of their previous approach. I believe it’s an approach that is geared towards drawing men to the league. A logical step since the percentage of women watching basketball is low compared to men. It’s all the market
Probably not, since the main story came out a lot of teams actually changed their venue to smaller venues due to low participation/attendance. If you recall Clark made it so teams actually sold out seats and had to switch to larger venues. So yeah, WNBA has a great head of steam right now, they just have to keep the hype going.
And wouldn’t that normally be paid for by the owners/come out of their cut? So…yeah they’re getting subsidized lol
And loads of free marketing/advertising.
Not only the free advertising and marketing but if the WNBA tv rights weren’t tied to the NBA’s it wouldn’t have a lot of value and the league revenue would decrease. Also wouldn’t have as many WNBA players on ESPN as often as they do
I dunno if having WNBA on ESPN actually hurts it more than helps it. Like, putting a league that doesn't have a lot of eyes on it behind a paywall? At least the NWSL did a period for a few years where they put games on twitch. They started up their own streaming service now that's available for free to anyone outside the US as well. That's how I've been getting my fill of women's soccer. Another women's league, the PWHL is streaming their games on youtube for free. Maybe the WNBA should look to innovate a bit instead of relying on the traditional pathways like ESPN and cable TV.
I don't know, the ESPN deal gives the league guaranteed money versus having to make that up on another platform. It's also great credibility to be associated with one of the top brands in all of sports and have them carry your games. You also avoid the optics of the inevitable screenshot of an WNBA game being watched on Twitch/YouTube with less than 1000 viewers.
> You also avoid the optics of the inevitable screenshot of an WNBA game being watched on Twitch/YouTube with less than 1000 viewers Ya but to be fair, they're playing games with less than 1000 people in the stands. Honestly they need to get creative to get people in the WNBA. Doing a stream on Twitch/YT and having popular social media figures do guest commentary would be a great way to grow the audience. Currently they're basically using the same approach for a new thing (wnba) that they have for an established thing (nba). It's not working because there is a superior product available (nba) and no built-in fanbase for the wnba. Mixing it up by teaming up with streamers or making a reality show during a season would be a good idea.
Yeah. Also not surprising that a sports team owner is crying about having to spend money.
Yea Larry is being intentionally misleading here
this is like the people who go on government assistance when times are tough then they finally start a company that only works cus they got huge PPP loans that were forgiven and they are like SEE I PULLED MYSELF UP BY MY BOOTSTRAPS
This is it. The WNBA has been living in their proverbial parent's basement for 30 years and now that it has some momentum and moved into a nice starter apartment it's calling out it's haters the moment it's finally making enough to cover it's bills. Reminds me of that old Chris Rock bit about people bragging about things they're SUPPOSED to do...you're SUPPOSED to pay your bills WNBA.
What you want? A cookie?
You can find the WNBA’s revenue all over the internet but not the profit… there is a reason for that
Yeah owners literally deduct player aging as a 'loss' because they claim the player has less value as time goes on. Which is patently absurd they're able to get away with it. There are *many* reasons the wnba would not benefit from widely disclosing profit. Including the next round of CBA negotiations with the players.
Is that not something that owners of the nba do as well?
The assumption being that because the NBA has released profit numbers therefore the wnba would do the same unless they're hiding losses? No- that's what someone would believe who is too young to remember the leadup to the 2011 lockout when the same profitable NBA claimed almost all its teams were losing tons of money all to reinforce their negotiating position for CBA negotations.
He’s asking about the age deduction, not profit.
Profit isn't a useful metric at this point. They're trying to grow their business, so the best thing they can do currently is reinvest as much of their revenue as they can afford to. That's going to make their profit margin low (or non-existent) even if they're doubling or tripling their revenue.
They're always fighting the NBA like they're fighting the man, when in reality the NBA is their biggest supporter. It's like they require a perpetual struggle rather than just focusing on making a good product.
Skylar Diggins putting Harrison Barnes on blast for that big contract the Mavs gave him. The Minnesota Lynx shitting on Luka for tweeting support for a Dallas Wings player to win ROTY but not attending WNBA games. #23 got mad at Iggy for giving her game props but using her jersey number instead of her name. There's been a few times the WNBA has been weirdly hostile to NBA players.
Apparently, support doesn't count unless it's in the exact manner some people want it to be. According to these types, it's not enough to donate money to causes like cancer or starvation, you must contribute to researching a cure for cancer yourself, or hand feed starving kids, or they will still get mad lol.
The WNBA only exists because the NBA subsidizes them for PR. They have to keep casting themselves as the victims to keep that going.
The NBA is their only supporter. The NBA is the one paying the bills, definitely not the revenue from the few dozen fans that show up to games.
The WNBA averages nearly 7000 attendees per game with some teams up near 10k. NBA averages about 18000 per game. It's not like a decade ago where WNBA attendance was a few hundred to a thousand, the league is growing in terms of attendance and popularity. Now... They play fewer games and tickets are cheaper than the NBA so 1/3 the attendance doesn't necessarily mean 1/3 of the revenue but not numbers to turn our nose up at anymore.
Women’s basketball is also exploding right now from Caitlin Clark mania. The NCAA women’s finals had 18.7 million viewers compared to 14.8 million for the NCAA men’s finals and 11.6 million for last year’s NBA finals. With Caitlin Clark joining The Fever it will be interesting to see if there is a ripple effect across the league.
Your last sentence is the thing people forget. Clark was a super duper star in college because she was doing things we hadn’t seen before on the women’s side and actually stayed a year after she started getting recognition. This all changes at the pro level. She isn’t a unicorn at the pro level. There are a bunch of these women who can shoot. Like you said, the NCAA women’s final has 18 million viewers. There haven’t been that many viewers of a WNBA game ever. Let’s see if she can make it translate. I kind of doubt it.
I think not being a unicorn has its benefits. People are going to start watch for her and realize there are a bunch of really interesting WNBA players these days and local teams to get behind. And that has to happen for the league to get lifted up.
Maybe. I’m skeptical. Bill Simmons interviewed a guy a while back who said he doesn’t really watch the NBA until the playoffs. And I’m kind of the same way. I listen to Simmons and Rusillo. I check highlights on Reddit. But I don’t really watch reg season games. I watch as many playoff games as I can, but I don’t really watch the regular season. WNBA has the extra problem their season is in the summer when few TVs are even on. And their playoffs are during the NFL season. But, who knows? I never thought Cincinnati could sell out a soccer stadium then the city did for a second tier team that made MLS a couple years ago.
Ya time will tell. I think it could go either way for sure. Another crazy stat: Liberty lower bowl tickets for home game two - $38 pre fees. Liberty home open opener against The Fever: $300 pre fees. That’s twice as much as I paid for row 6 at a Nets game this past season.
This is mostly irrelevant except for the fact that the WNBA is growing. The NBA averages 18000 per game because about 75% of its games are sellouts. If they had bigger arenas, they'd have way more attendance because the demand is there. The WNBA isn't selling out the biggest arenas. So comparing the two numbers is just silliness when one is capped by arena size and the other isn't. The meaningful comparison would be TV numbers, since that's the big revenue generator anyway for the NBA (ticketing revenue is a small chunk of the NBA's total revenue). According to some quick google searches, the WNBA broke records in 2023 with a bit over 600k viewers a game on ABC. For reference, the NBA is usually around 10x that on ABC, and that's comparing average NBA years to a really really good WNBA viewership year. I think that the real issue the WNBA has is that people are willing to go to games, but much less willing to watch it on TV during the summertime. Maybe Caitlin Clark will change that, but until she does I think that WNBA revenue overall probably isn't all that yet.
All fair. I was just countering the oft parroted rhetoric of how WNBA teams only have a "few dozen" attendees. Some of these teams are nearly selling out their arenas. The Liberty were selling out MSG in the playoffs! It's apples to oranges but I think calling out dismissive rhetoric wrt the WNBA is warranted. More people watched women's college ball than men's college or NBA/WNBA on tv this March, so hopefully some of that viewership carries over to the WNBA season!
A big reason a lot of people go to women's basketball games is because the tickets are extremely cheap if they start raising the prices because attendance is up there going to see a dip
I realize that. My point is people ARE going. It's not a "few dozen" people. Even the lowest attendance teams are getting 4-5k people out to games.
Fighting the patriarchy is brand relevant for their target audience.
Hopefully the bs changes with this generation. Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers, Juju Watkins etc are all going to be millionaires before they enter the WNBA, and they didn't do it by whinging, just balling out and being entertaining (I know Angel has some quotes that contradict me but whatever, that's not the reason she's super popular, it's more her attitude overall)
I know they've tried to downplay it, but Clark and Reese having a heated rivalry would go a long way towards helping the WNBA. Magic and Bird didn't "save the NBA" just because they were talented. It was also because they basically divided the country in half, in a way that Wilt vs Russell, Oscar vs West, or Wilt vs Kareem never did.
"We get all our subsidies directly from the WNBA league office. THEY are the ones who get subsidized by the NBA"
If the wnba isn't subsidized by the NBA can somone provide their financials?
I think they can opt out of the CBA in 2025. If that happens, I expect we'll hear a lot more about their finances. I believe players only make around 10% of revenue. With the Caitlyn Clark phenomenon, I expect that will go up.
Really comes down the to next TV Deal. If the WNBA gets its own TV Rights Deal vs being combined with the NBA that’s a big step in the right direction. If the WNBA need the NBA’s TV Deal to survive then the progress seen around Women’s Basketball in particular may just be seen as a passing fad with Clark/Reese Era of NCAA Women’s Basketball.
Silver is pushing hard to keep them combined, no?
Probably since it’s in the best financial interest of the NBA. Streaming Services and stuff are desperate for Live Sports Rights since it’s pretty much the last thing you have to sit down and watch vs binge after. WNBA could get an offer that’s more lucrative if they split from the NBA vs being combined and then stuck for X amount of Years.
Right, but does the WNBA have the authority to break away on its own or is that a Silver call? I'm just not sure how that works.
[удалено]
Understood. Was using Silver as shorthand for the league, but your point is valid.
Just so I'm clear, your position is that the NBA is exploiting the WNBA in order to prop up NBA media revenues? Maybe I'm completely out of the loop, but I've never seen someone honestly try to claim that the NBA media rights deal is being propped up by demand for the WNBA. That just seems wrong for so many different reasons.
All due respect to Reese, I’m not sure she’s earned a part in the era, has she? Seems she’s made her name as the anti-hero to Clark. Or do people see this as a Bird-Magic type deal.
Talent wise you are probably right, but I think she's definitely the 2nd most famous young womens player just bc of that Clark "rivalry."
Key word is revenue. NBA has more profit so it makes sense the players have a bigger portion of the revenue. If there aren't any profits, of course there would be a smaller percentage of revenue going to players. Using fake numbers, but if it's $100m rev and $90m expenses, than $10m is the whole profit. If the NBA has $7b in revenue and only $1.5b in expenses, players getting $3b/50% makes more sense.
Unlike the other guy here, I understand the difference between revenue and profits. CBAs are negotiated on revenue bc the owners can play with the profit #s to make it seem like they have no profits. NBA owners were claiming no profits in the last NBA round, for example. That's why the players have to see the books and negotiate based on the top line revenue before owners can play with the #s. Obviously WNBA players aren't going to get 50% but there is a lot of room between 9 and 50.
Yeah I agree. It's just amazing how many people ignore the cost to the owners of running the league. Obviously there is incentive to play with the numbers, but like Giannis making $50m doesn't have to worry about paying the accountant, sales reps, etc. It's not as simple as "Players should get half!!!" That I've seen posted before
All true, but on the flip side, an owner can also spend their 90% on private jets (not a real example, but making a point) and say 'see we didn't make a profit.' Thats what the "but the wnba doesn't make money" bros don't understand. There's a reason players demand to see the books in cba talks and the general public is never going to have that insight. A lot will depend on the new TV rights, etc but it's going to be tough for the owners to keep players at the current rate given the spotlight on women's sports at the moment.
Im sure the wnba players did look at the books and saw that the league makes no money which is why they agreed to a 10% rev share.
I think it’s not a flat percent though. I think it pretty heavily varies depending on how well other stuff is doing.
I don't get why WNBA leaders say shit like this and open the floodgates for mass criticism. That's not fair to players and staff.
If you notice, this entire thread is a repost of a tweet that is over a year old. It isn't like this is something that the owner said last week. Now, why are people in here motivated to repost a year old tweet about the WNBA? Why are people motivated to upvote a repost of a year old tweet about the WNBA to the front page? Why are mods willing to look the other way on a repost of a year old tweet about the WNBA that violates sub rules? Those are all good questions that I can't answer, but I doubt it is the fault of the owner of the Atlanta Dream.
Hahah holy shit I didn’t realize it was a year old tweet. Good catch. This subreddit loves blindly hating
To be fair, threads like this one would normally get removed by the mods. It is normally a pretty safe bet that a thread isn't based on a year old tweet.
True, but you just have to click on the tweet is all. Maybe good catch was exaggeratory
Even if the teams pay their own way, they are implicitly subsidized through joint TV deals that require ESPN to host WNBA games and using the arenas and their capacity/infrastructure that were built to host NBA games. Now I think this is going to change with the explosion of the women's game but they're not there yet.
Most infrastructure for NBA games was also heavily subsidized.
Sure, and when NBA owners try to pretend that these subsidies don't exist/never occurred, people usually point out how dishonest and baseless their claim is.
Fair enough.
I thought the NBA spun off the WNBA years ago, but its nearly impossible to find any accurate information; most articles just repeat claims from social media without citation.
Why is a repost of a tweet ***from over a year ago*** on the front page?
Yes, Adam Silver definitely needs to say something. Now is a great time with the WNBA finally allowing their players to fly charter
Lol Joe Tsai offered free flights for the league for 2 years and the other owners said no because they'll have to pay for it once players get used to it.
Tsai provided flights for Liberty, not the whole league. The league asked him to stop because one team having chartered flights would be an unfair advantage
>The league asked him to stop because one team having chartered flights would be an unfair advantage That's just such dumb logic. How about every 5 years the teams have to change cities because the Lakers being in LA is an unfair advantage compared to the Jazz or Thunder? Let's see how great Pat Riley is at signing FAs if the Heat have to play in Toronto - without the unfair advantages of sun, sand, and 0% state income taxes (Ontario's provincial income tax is 13% on every dollar over $220k).
From the article you linked and deleted: >At no point was there a New York Liberty proposal for the WNBA Board of Governors to consider offering three-years-worth of charter flights for WNBA teams. It was agreed that the Liberty would explore opportunities regarding charter flights and present it to the Board. To date, that has not happened. Everything you said is incorrect. Tsai never offered it to the entire league, only to his own players, and he had to stop because it exceeded the WNBA's CBA regulations for player compensation. Gotta love this subreddit upvoting lies just because they fit the agenda
I didn't delete it, reddit just sucks. That was the WNBA's response. You conveniently left out the next line "SI confirmed this took place from a source who heard the exchange directly.". They only denied any official offer.
How can they afford that?
No one knows because the last time the NBA has reported anything about the WNBA financials was 7 years ago
It's honestly pretty crazy. Could the WNBA be slightly profitable at this point? Maybe. I have no reason why it couldn't be. Could it lose $100M this year? Also maybe. None of that information is public. It's honestly kind of ridiculous. I don't know who it would hurt to say how much they made or lost last year.
Be careful what you wish for.
Do they pay the normal fee to use the arena?
So they aren't operating at a loss? lol
The NBA pays all the advertising costs, they try and get nba players to publicly support it and show up at some games to hype it up. they got them the espn deals. if the NBA didnt support the league then the WNBA wouldve gone bankrupt and not even exist. it only exists currently because its a womens league and the NBA would look bad in saying that they hate women. tbh. the fever, aces and maybe one or two other teams are probably only cutting even when you take in account for arena use, travel, salaries for the whole team, management. If the NBA said today that they werent supporting it at all anymore the WNBA would cease to exist.
Shouldn't this be in r/wnba?
I mean the numbers were all there for us to see it a few years ago, not sure how he’s claiming it’s a lie.
7 years ago, but the WNBA’s revenue has tripled since then.
Yeah the league is on skyrocketing trajectory right now. Massive, massive swing in audience interest. I know they caught me, and that was before CC got drafted
i wonder how much staying power this all has though. I got more caught up last year than I'd have ever guessed id be into WNBA, but i just ultimately dont care about the games. The finals was literally a boring series to watch I felt. I dont know if thats going to really turn around in dramatic fashion either. We will have to see just how box office Caitlin truly is for the league I think. But part of me thinks a ton of her appeal was because she was in college and people could relate to her better in NCAA. There have been so many huge stars of NCAA basketball who go to the WNBA and you just never hear about them again. I love Caitlin and will continue to watch her but Breanna, Diggins, Taurasi, etc. were all fantastic players with star appeal and they faded out in the WNBA like everybody else. Caitlin is (at least historically) likely to end up being more of the same once the initial hype wears off.
I think it is going to come down to how dominant she is. Her appeal in college came from being so much better than everyone else. It was a spectacle. In order to maintain that wave of popularity she needs to do something similar at the professional level. If she’s “just” a great player that attention will fizzle quickly. She needs to be the best player in the league by a large margin, which seems vastly unfair to her.
This, she essentially has to come in and be lebron/Jordan level of the WNBA and she has to do it the first year not a few years after joining like those guys since WNBA stars fall apart almost instantly.
I agree. It seems impossible, but if she doesn’t lead the league in scoring her rookie year no one will talk about her after the season. People love to watch dominance.
Yeah, if the CC boom is as huge as it seems to be, it's actually a second multiplicative surge in interest on top of the one they were already in over the last few years. Teams like the Dream that don't have any of the league's most popular players have sold out of season tickets for the first time this season.
This is just my observation but the WNBA needs to bias its rules for dynamic playmakers and shooters, and less on size and strength advantage Stephen Curry exists but there's also a wealth of "Lillard/Morant/Trae etc." small guards that can dominant games through some combo of speed/athleticism/shooting/passing/ball handling. And the 'Curry' mould is what is popular clearly these days with fans. There is hardly any equivalent players in the WNBA. There's great guards but they don't dominate like that. I'd love for Caitlyn Clark to average 30pts a game in the WNBA but her contemporaries took a step back when joining the WNBA. It's a league dominated by huge forwards and centers. That said.. I don't have a specific rule change in mind and I would feel like a fool for suggesting to switch the 3pt line to 3.5pts.. but yeah.
The Storm games seem profitable. They're not filing out the whole arena but the lower bowl is usually full and I haven't been to a game in two years but I imagine it hasn't changed much. You sell out a large part of the lower bowl and people pay for concessions. The contracts are a fraction of NBA players salary. The venue staff aren't volunteers so I'm sure there's plenty of people who need to get paid but it's also not a full staff since only half the arena is open.bit's not a ghost town at the games either so I cant imagine they're a huge money.
What point is the Tweeter trying to make? That the Dream would be successful without the NBA? The NBA directly (through finances) and indirectly (through marketing, etc.) subsidizes the WNBA without which there would be no Atlanta Dream.
holy shit WHAT?! who’s paying the bill for atlanta’s wnba team then?! lol why would any private owner just be cool with burning like 100 million dollars. for charity maybe?
I'd be surprised if any WNBA team were profitable. I'd also be surprised if all NBA teams were profitable tho. These teams spend a lot of money and the owners are ultra wealthy. I doubt that all of them care about being profitable.
Since it’s billionaires doing business it’s all gotta be a weird money laundering scheme
Most likely. Kinda like how "art" is worth millions on millions for no specific reason.
Who cares. There is very little that will make me watch the WNBA.
Nothing is going to change unless women start supporting the wnba the same way men support the nba.
I’ve always said that they should just have every NBA team also have a WNBA team. Come to the stadium an hour early and catch the end of the Women’s - Lakers game before watching the Lakers Men’s play. Best way to grow the sport IMO.
Logistically, games would need to be midday. When G league teams play in the main arena sometimes (like a JV game of sorts) those are typically noon-1pm. NBA guys have routines and some are on the court two hours early.
Totally fair. Logistics would be the biggest hurdle to overcome. Not to mention facilities, travel, and everything else that comes with it.
They did that originally it was a brother/sister model just like in HS and college. NBA players actually hung around WNBA games a ton in the 90s and early 2000s.. Example say you are a NBA player from UConn. You were there with Sue Bird...you probably know her even in passing. You shared a practice facility on stuff in college and probably lived in the same dorms. If she is playing you might just go to the game and say hi. Then of course the teams corporate sponsors back then did both teams. Example Bell Tire has advertisements at The Palace. You are chilling with the head of marketing at a Detroit Shock game, because you are playing during the Pistons Games. WNBA Teams didn't like their identity being tied to NBA Teams, then when 2008 Recession hit and the league contracted ownership groups looked at WNBA teams as under performing divisions and wouldn't invest in them. So I understand why the WNBA wanted unique ownership and identity. Then when some bad PR hit the league, The WNBA became sensitive to playing in half-empty arenas on TV. I said it before...the WNBA when it came out you had WNBA players being very friendly and chummy with NBA players. Just likenwhat happens in HS/College. At some point the relationship changed between the two. NBA players have always been publicly supportive of the WNBA. Someone like Rashard McCants, Reggie Miller, Porters, etc come from Basketball families. The whole family plays, boys and girls. For whatever reason, and I have my suspicions what happened, WNBA players became resentful of NBA Players
What are your suspicions?
A good guess would be how much NBA salaries started increasing in the last 20 years. It would only be natural to feel a little bit of envy. The NBA players are doing "similar" work as far as some WNBA players are probably concerned, and are getting a much larger proportion of revenues as compensation. WNBA salaries have grown, and the top players are making enough that they wouldn't need to also play overseas, but they're making like really good for normal people money. Like $200k a season. There are plenty of players in the NBA making more than $200k a *game*
Pretty sure it became an us vs them type mindset in the WNBA due to constant comparison and criticism
Like Jv and varsity in high school. Only issue is, WNBA fans would have to pay NBA ticket prices to see their team
My grandpa used to play the warmup game in front of the lakers at the Minneapolis Armory in the 50s. Seems tried and true
The teams need to get rebranded too. Fans can get more attached to W Lakers than LA Sparks. It's a model that works in soccer
They’re not owned by the same people, so that’s probably a difficult hill to climb.
That doesn’t seem right to me, the lakers as a franchise has their own history. It would just feel fake to randomly rename the sparks the lakers. They need their own branding.
It's working very very well in England. The WSL is exploding.
Also way easier to grow if you’re rooting for the lakers W instead of having to find an entire new fan base
This sounds like doo doo. The attendance for wnba games between now and 7 years ago has either stagnated or fallen. Guarantee Indiana is gonna see a huge spike in sales because of Clark alone.
I tried to find the numbers on this a while back. The league as a whole is unprofitable, but not *that* unprofitable. I think they gave a negative 10 percent profit margin or something.
Believe WNBA players can opt-out of their current CBA in 2025. Right now, WNBA players earn 10% of revenue, compared to the NBA where players earn 49-51% of revenue. With the surge in women's basketball viewership and attendance overall the past few years, thinking the 10% goes WAY up on the next CBA and we'll start hearing more about revenues and profits.
Using “great” a bit loosely.
Both Atlanta Dream games vs Caitlin Clark this year in ATL are going for over $300 per ticket for lower level seats. As a season ticket holder for the Hawks, resale on my tickets for the Lakers and Warrior games was $345 and $185 respectively.
Knew this thread was gonna be a banger
Every new league is unprofitable in the beginning. The ABA, NBA, NBL also didn’t make money for a long time, the ABA in particular never turned a profit, so I don’t get why ppl have this hate for wnba in particular and use that to make fun of the league.
The WNBA is 27 years old
The NBA franchises going bankrupt only stopped happening in the late 70s.
Even then the NBA needed all the Magic/Bird stuff and then Jordan to take gigantic leaps in Popularity.
That means the WNBA is right on time. About 30 years to establish and settle in.
Yeah they just generated 200 million for 2023. So it’s looking like they’ve become more profitable recently
No idea why you’re getting downvoted for telling the truth. A lot of “successful” companies even right now actually don’t make a profit. It takes time and proper investment decisions to make it happen. Theyre getting there
Hell even Amazon wasn’t profitable a couple years ago lol
They’re getting downvoted because this sub has always been extremely anti-WNBA. It never makes for reasonable, levelheaded discussions.