The WNBA Gets Catty

The WNBA All-Star game is a contradiction in terms, because there are no stars in the WNBA outside of Caitlin Clark. 

That’s just the reality.

Both teams in the WNBA All-Star game decided to walk out on the court with warm-up shirts emblazoned, “Pay Us What You Owe Us.”

You could make a credible case that the players ought to be paid a little bit more. The credible case is basically that the collective bargaining agreement between the NBA and NBA players means NBA players pulled down about half of the gross revenue of the league, and in the WNBA, the players pulled down about 9% of the gross revenue of the league.

But the other side of that argument is that the WNBA makes zero money and loses money every single year. Every year. And the only person in the WNBA who’s driving ratings is Caitlin Clark. 

Here’s where it gets funny: Forget about the equal pay argument or “Pay Us What You Owe Us.” You’re worth what the market will pay you.

If you think that you are irreplaceable in the WNBA, you’ve got another thing coming. They could bring in scrubs tomorrow to replace every player except for Caitlin Clark, and no one would notice. There’s no such thing as “Irreplaceable” in the WNBA on a marketing level. 

As a below replacement value, you could pick up any group of college basketball-playing women, substitute them for the players, except for Clark, who’s famous, and no one would notice the difference. 

But all of that aside, the utter cattiness with which all the WNBA players treat Caitlin Clark, who is their meal ticket, is astonishing. The only reason anyone cares about the WNBA is because Caitlin Clark is in it.

There is apparently a WNBA player named Kelsey Plum, whom I was unaware of. I would not know her from Professor Plum with the wrench in the conservatory. I have no idea who she is because I watch actual sports, not the WNBA. 

In any case, she sounded off about these T-shirts, and then she got mad at Caitlin Clark for wearing the T-shirt. If you want to blow up stereotypes about women snapping at each other, this is not the way to do it.

“It was a very powerful moment,” Plum said of fans chanting, “Pay them.” She continued, “As players, we didn’t know that that was going to happen. It was a genuine surprise. The T-shirt was determined this morning. We had a meeting for and, you know, not to tattletale, but zero members of Team Clark were very present for that.”

Everybody is pissed in the WNBA at the fact that Caitlin Clark is famous and is making them all richer. 

Caitlin Clark is making you your money. That is what Caitlin Clark is doing. 

So continue along these lines, ladies. Continue trying to basically body-check Caitlin Clark every time she comes onto the court, like a hockey game, and see how that works out for you.