On Saturday, the stars of the WNBA will come together in Phoenix for the league’s All-Star Game. We wrote this essay well before the tipoff of the game, let alone its final result, and so, as they say, “Results came in too late for this edition.”
Very early this season — perhaps from the outset — stars of the WNBA attracted attention for matters we feel are out of bounds, especially given the popularity of a league rightly on the rise because of the product it puts on the court night after night. We will add to that, probably with little objection in these pages, that the Chicago Sky are the best team in Chicago right now. From our perspective, they represent the resilience and beauty of our city.
However, the members of the Sky and the rest of the WNBA are not paid like other professional athletes.
The Sky’s Kamilla Cardoso and Angel Reese and Indiana Fever’s Caitlin Clark were three of the biggest draft picks coming out of college; each of them makes a standard WNBA rookie salary of a little less than $77,000. One of them will likely be Rookie of the Year; another will be runner-up. Each has set league records in her first few months. By contrast, Chris Livingston, the 58th and final pick of the NBA draft, has an initial contract of $7.6 million, nearly 100 times that of any WNBA rookie, even a once-in-a-generation superstar. He played precisely 91 minutes this past NBA season.
The incredible gender salary gap in professional basketball is compounded by a health gap between male and female hoopsters. WNBA athletes suffer injuries at a higher rate because they must play year-round in the United States and Europe in order to cover expenses while being a full-time athlete. As a result, men are given time to rest and allow their bodies to recover while women must work 12 months out of the year, which shortens their athletic careers. Men take a day, or even a week, for parental leave, while women choose months to be with their newborns, paired with the effort of staying in shape during and after delivery.
Column: The latest WNBA discourse is downright messy — and it’s not about basketball
If we paid women a higher wage, we could have star athletes playing more seasons like LeBron James and Michael Jordan. It would be great for the sport for members of young generations to grow up with an athlete.
If we paid women a higher wage, we could demonstrate our concern for women’s health care.
If we paid women a higher wage, we would not victim-shame the rookie whose impact led to the WNBA finally using chartered flights for its athletes, which NBA players have enjoyed for more than two decades.
If we want to talk about morality in professional basketball, we should focus on the glaring health and financial disparities male and female athletes face.
For us four clerics, the best team in Chicago currently is the Chicago Sky. The Sky provide affordable, family-centered entertainment that is absolutely a joy to watch. Let’s go and support this great team, not just by standing up for their players and speaking out against racism and misogyny, but by going to the games and making the Sky our hometown team.
Chicago faith leaders Rabbi Seth Limmer, the Rev. Otis Moss III, the Rev. Ciera Bates-Chamberlain and the Rev. Michael Pfleger joined the Tribune’s opinion section in summer 2022 for a series of columns on potential solutions to Chicago’s chronic gun violence problem. The column continues on an occasional basis.
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