NBA commissioner Adam Silver looks more foolish by the day.
The PWHL has already sold out a game at Madison Square Garden next month. Revenue from ticket sales jumped more than 200% in Unrivaled’s second season while merchandise was up 130%. A new study by EDO found that ads during women’s sporting events generated 15% more engagement than ads on prime-time broadcast and cable.
Silver, the WNBA and owners in both leagues, meanwhile, are still dithering over a new WNBA contract, failing to appreciate they’re putting their financial goldmine at risk.
“We need to now move toward the next level of sense of urgency,” Silver said during NBA All-Star Weekend last month, “and not lose momentum in terms of the amazing amount of progress we’ve seen in women’s basketball.’
Looking forward to when that message kicks in. Because right now, there are sloths with greater senses of urgency.
The WNBA had said a new deal needed to be reached by March 10 to prevent the upcoming season from being delayed, yet that deadline is here and we have no agreement.
While the league and its players’ union remain far apart on negotiating revenue sharing and salary cap agreements, the real sticking point has never been about percentages or dollars and cents. It’s that Silver and the NBA, which still owns about 42% of the league, don’t see the WNBA as a legitimate financial powerhouse.
This is not unique to Silver and his owners. The NCAA, FIFA, U.S. Soccer, broadcasters — pretty much everyone who has had the opportunity to cash in on women’s sports — has botched it. They dismiss it as a passing fad or are so ignorant, or outright hostile, to the appeal that they are blind to the market.
Only when the data points, or public shame, become too overwhelming to ignore do they get on board.
With NBA owners, there’s also resentment for all those years they bankrolled the WNBA. (Before you manbabies start yowling, unless you also squawked all those years the NBA was losing money, or are carrying pitchforks about the teams still losing money, zip it.)
Compounding all this is no one thinks women athletes are serious when they say they are determined to get their worth.
‘We’re all just fighting for what we think we deserve. I just want to feel valued,’ three-time WNBA champion Jackie Young said last week. ‘That’s the biggest thing.”
What the players want is not an outrageous ask. They are looking for 25% of gross league revenue, which is about half what NBA players get. (An even split of revenues, or close to it, is standard for the major men’s leagues.) The max salary would grow to nearly $2 million, which is still more than $1 million less than the minimum for an NBA veteran.
The WNBA claims it can’t afford this, which is not surprising. I’ve yet to find a sports league that hasn’t cried poor during labor negotiations.
But the cost of not getting a deal done is going to be far greater, and it’s going to be Silver, the WNBA, the NBA and its owners who will lose most. Because while they’re refusing to give the players their due, others will step into the void. While the W drags its heels on sustaining the moneymaker it already has, sponsors and fans are tripping over themselves to put their money into women’s sports.
Unrivaled said it generated $45 million in revenue this season, up from $27 million in its inaugural season. In addition to sellouts when it took the league on the road to Philadelphia and Brooklyn, it added new sponsors including PwC, Maker’s Mark and Cheez-It.
Denver, which was passed over in the latest round of WNBA expansion, will welcome the PWHL’s Takeover Tour back next week after setting an attendance record at Ball Arena last season. Its new NWSL team, the Denver Summit, has already sold 45,000 tickets for its first game, which will be played later this month at the Broncos’ Mile High Stadium.
ESPN has announced it is replacing “Sunday Night Baseball” with “Women’s Sports Sundays” this summer. Less than a week after acquiring rights to international basketball games, TNT Sports is set to make bank with the U.S. women’s game against Senegal on Wednesday, March 11. Better known as The Return of Caitlin Clark.
The WNBA, meanwhile, is watching from the sidelines.
Women’s sports is not a charity project, it’s a growth business. A massive one at that. And the WNBA is going to get passed by because Silver and his owners don’t get it.
Worse, they don’t seem to care.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.
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