- Jan 20, 2002
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League lost about 50m if I recall despite a record breaking year
Hopefully, next TV deal is huge, so these ladies get paid
***WOMEN'S HOOPS THREAD*** CONGRATS, 38-0 S. Carolina! CONGRATS, NY LIBERTY!!
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by darthska,
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League lost about 50m if I recall despite a record breaking year
Hopefully, next TV deal is huge, so these ladies get paid
- Jan 27, 2013
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More from the article
"Clark, a financial outlier in the league, isn't playing professionally during the break and she doesn't need to. In addition to an eight-year, $28 million deal with Nike, which gives her $3.5 million a year from the shoe company alone, she also has deals with insurance agency State Farm, appearing in nationwide commercials, HyVee, Gatorade, Wilson, Gainbridge, Xfinity and Buick.
While the specific numbers of those deals are unknown, economists predict Clark brings in millions more from those deals.
"Her salary from the WNBA is background noise to her annual income and it should be because she's a national, maybe global, superstar," said Michael Hicks, professor of economics and the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University. "The money that she's making from playing for the WNBA, it is almost irrelevant to her economic vitality."
Other players in the league aren't landing Clark-esque deals worth millions. To get the WNBA to the next level, where salaries increase and lucrative sponsorships abound for all top players, another Caitlin Clark will have to come along. And another. And another. And another.
One person can't transform the entire financial structure of a sports league, said Hicks, no matter how great they are.
But they can be the spark that ignites an economic overhaul.
'What are people willing to spend money on?'
Take Wilt Chamberlain and the early days of the NBA when teams were struggling financially, fan support was often lackluster, and players were barely making enough to live on.
Chamberlain came into the league from the University of Kansas where he averaged 29.6 points and 18.9 rebounds per game and, in 1957, led his team to the NCAA tournament final, only to lose in a heartbreaking triple-overtime thriller to North Carolina.
When the college superstar signed a rookie contract in 1959 with the Philadelphia Warriors for $30,000 (worth $325,426 today), he became the NBA's highest paid player. A decade later, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who won 3 NCAA titles with UCLA, signed a rookie contract with the Milwaukee Bucks for $250,000 (worth $2.2 million today).
As star player after star player was signed, interest in the NBA from fans, sponsors and television began to build, especially when Julius Erving, after playing in the American Basketball Association, was acquired in 1976 by the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers and paid $3 million ($16.6 million today).
"But then along came Larry Bird and Magic Johnson and the rest is history," said Brewer. "The NBA took off. It was like a sparkplug was sparked by those two gentlemen and the same thing seems to be happening right now with a (handful) of these WNBA players, namely Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark. And together, they are igniting a firestorm of interest in the WNBA."
The question is whether that firestorm will last and whether it will one day translate into big money for the league. Money big enough to make playing in the WNBA a lucrative career."
In today's pro sports industry, television contracts are what shape much of the financial landscape for players.
"The big issue is women's basketball doesn't command anything like men's basketball, at least not traditionally, in terms of viewership," said Hicks. "And that translates into lower TV revenue, which means that there's less money to pay players."
In the middle of Clark's rookie season in July, the WNBA signed a new 11-year media rights deal with Disney, Amazon Prime Video and NBC Universal. The deal, valued at $2.2 billion, or $200 million per year, begins with the 2026 season. The WNBA's current deal, which ends in 2025, is worth $60 million per season.
In the same month, the NBA announced its new television agreement with Disney (ABC and ESPN), Comcast (NBA and Peacock) and Amazon which will air all of the NBA's nationally televised games from the 2025-26 season through the 2035-36 season -- an 11-year agreement that will net the NBA roughly $76 billion.
As the 2024 season concluded, some questioned whether the WNBA had negotiated the best deal, given that:
ESPN reported that it averaged 1.2 million viewers for its regular-season WNBA games, up from 440,000 a year prior. By comparison, the NBA’s average rating last season for regular-season games on ESPN and TNT was 1.56 million. That means just 360,000 fewer fans were watching the women's league.
The WNBA All-Star Game with Clark playing drew 3.4 million viewers compared to 850,000 in 2023. The NBA All-Star Game had 5.5 million people watching. The Fever alone garnered five games with more than two million viewers and 18 with more than a million.
Collectively, the full media value across all WNBA team social accounts increased by $49 million due to growth in engagement, according to a report from relometrics.com.
IndyStar reached out to the WNBA, asking why the league signed a long-term media deal even as Clark was coming in and expected to garner major interest in the coming years. It declined to comment.
"TV contracts are one of these things where, oftentimes, you face a balancing act between choosing certainty long-term against the risk that your product is going to become more valuable," said Holden. "It's one of these things where you just don't know what's going to happen so you trade certainty for potential that you could have had more money down the road."
It's reasonable for both sides to wait a year or two, he said, just to see if the numbers are stable or growing and, if so, they can renegotiate at that time.
"Professional sports are part of the capitalist market," said Susan K. Cahn, Professor Emerita of History at the University at Buffalo and an expert on women’s and LGBTQ history, with much of her work focusing on sports. "And so, what are people willing to spend money on?"
People have to realize, she said, that no matter how much Clark has meant to the league in just one year, there have been hundreds of players before her who have paved a path for future WNBA growth.
"There's a lot of them that don't get enough credit for building the boat," said Brewer. "It's been very enlightening for me to look at the impact that Clark's made and the value attribution that she possesses.
"But when you look at it, it wouldn't happen without the rest of them, without all these players and the history of the game."
"Clark, a financial outlier in the league, isn't playing professionally during the break and she doesn't need to. In addition to an eight-year, $28 million deal with Nike, which gives her $3.5 million a year from the shoe company alone, she also has deals with insurance agency State Farm, appearing in nationwide commercials, HyVee, Gatorade, Wilson, Gainbridge, Xfinity and Buick.
While the specific numbers of those deals are unknown, economists predict Clark brings in millions more from those deals.
"Her salary from the WNBA is background noise to her annual income and it should be because she's a national, maybe global, superstar," said Michael Hicks, professor of economics and the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University. "The money that she's making from playing for the WNBA, it is almost irrelevant to her economic vitality."
Other players in the league aren't landing Clark-esque deals worth millions. To get the WNBA to the next level, where salaries increase and lucrative sponsorships abound for all top players, another Caitlin Clark will have to come along. And another. And another. And another.
One person can't transform the entire financial structure of a sports league, said Hicks, no matter how great they are.
But they can be the spark that ignites an economic overhaul.
'What are people willing to spend money on?'
Take Wilt Chamberlain and the early days of the NBA when teams were struggling financially, fan support was often lackluster, and players were barely making enough to live on.
Chamberlain came into the league from the University of Kansas where he averaged 29.6 points and 18.9 rebounds per game and, in 1957, led his team to the NCAA tournament final, only to lose in a heartbreaking triple-overtime thriller to North Carolina.
When the college superstar signed a rookie contract in 1959 with the Philadelphia Warriors for $30,000 (worth $325,426 today), he became the NBA's highest paid player. A decade later, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who won 3 NCAA titles with UCLA, signed a rookie contract with the Milwaukee Bucks for $250,000 (worth $2.2 million today).
As star player after star player was signed, interest in the NBA from fans, sponsors and television began to build, especially when Julius Erving, after playing in the American Basketball Association, was acquired in 1976 by the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers and paid $3 million ($16.6 million today).
"But then along came Larry Bird and Magic Johnson and the rest is history," said Brewer. "The NBA took off. It was like a sparkplug was sparked by those two gentlemen and the same thing seems to be happening right now with a (handful) of these WNBA players, namely Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark. And together, they are igniting a firestorm of interest in the WNBA."
The question is whether that firestorm will last and whether it will one day translate into big money for the league. Money big enough to make playing in the WNBA a lucrative career."
In today's pro sports industry, television contracts are what shape much of the financial landscape for players.
"The big issue is women's basketball doesn't command anything like men's basketball, at least not traditionally, in terms of viewership," said Hicks. "And that translates into lower TV revenue, which means that there's less money to pay players."
In the middle of Clark's rookie season in July, the WNBA signed a new 11-year media rights deal with Disney, Amazon Prime Video and NBC Universal. The deal, valued at $2.2 billion, or $200 million per year, begins with the 2026 season. The WNBA's current deal, which ends in 2025, is worth $60 million per season.
In the same month, the NBA announced its new television agreement with Disney (ABC and ESPN), Comcast (NBA and Peacock) and Amazon which will air all of the NBA's nationally televised games from the 2025-26 season through the 2035-36 season -- an 11-year agreement that will net the NBA roughly $76 billion.
As the 2024 season concluded, some questioned whether the WNBA had negotiated the best deal, given that:
ESPN reported that it averaged 1.2 million viewers for its regular-season WNBA games, up from 440,000 a year prior. By comparison, the NBA’s average rating last season for regular-season games on ESPN and TNT was 1.56 million. That means just 360,000 fewer fans were watching the women's league.
The WNBA All-Star Game with Clark playing drew 3.4 million viewers compared to 850,000 in 2023. The NBA All-Star Game had 5.5 million people watching. The Fever alone garnered five games with more than two million viewers and 18 with more than a million.
Collectively, the full media value across all WNBA team social accounts increased by $49 million due to growth in engagement, according to a report from relometrics.com.
IndyStar reached out to the WNBA, asking why the league signed a long-term media deal even as Clark was coming in and expected to garner major interest in the coming years. It declined to comment.
"TV contracts are one of these things where, oftentimes, you face a balancing act between choosing certainty long-term against the risk that your product is going to become more valuable," said Holden. "It's one of these things where you just don't know what's going to happen so you trade certainty for potential that you could have had more money down the road."
It's reasonable for both sides to wait a year or two, he said, just to see if the numbers are stable or growing and, if so, they can renegotiate at that time.
"Professional sports are part of the capitalist market," said Susan K. Cahn, Professor Emerita of History at the University at Buffalo and an expert on women’s and LGBTQ history, with much of her work focusing on sports. "And so, what are people willing to spend money on?"
People have to realize, she said, that no matter how much Clark has meant to the league in just one year, there have been hundreds of players before her who have paved a path for future WNBA growth.
"There's a lot of them that don't get enough credit for building the boat," said Brewer. "It's been very enlightening for me to look at the impact that Clark's made and the value attribution that she possesses.
"But when you look at it, it wouldn't happen without the rest of them, without all these players and the history of the game."
- Oct 13, 2001
- 161,302
- 143,432
- Jun 24, 2013
- 32,404
- 34,899
I ain’t reading alladatMore from the article
"Clark, a financial outlier in the league, isn't playing professionally during the break and she doesn't need to. In addition to an eight-year, $28 million deal with Nike, which gives her $3.5 million a year from the shoe company alone, she also has deals with insurance agency State Farm, appearing in nationwide commercials, HyVee, Gatorade, Wilson, Gainbridge, Xfinity and Buick.
While the specific numbers of those deals are unknown, economists predict Clark brings in millions more from those deals.
"Her salary from the WNBA is background noise to her annual income and it should be because she's a national, maybe global, superstar," said Michael Hicks, professor of economics and the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University. "The money that she's making from playing for the WNBA, it is almost irrelevant to her economic vitality."
Other players in the league aren't landing Clark-esque deals worth millions. To get the WNBA to the next level, where salaries increase and lucrative sponsorships abound for all top players, another Caitlin Clark will have to come along. And another. And another. And another.
One person can't transform the entire financial structure of a sports league, said Hicks, no matter how great they are.
But they can be the spark that ignites an economic overhaul.
'What are people willing to spend money on?'
Take Wilt Chamberlain and the early days of the NBA when teams were struggling financially, fan support was often lackluster, and players were barely making enough to live on.
Chamberlain came into the league from the University of Kansas where he averaged 29.6 points and 18.9 rebounds per game and, in 1957, led his team to the NCAA tournament final, only to lose in a heartbreaking triple-overtime thriller to North Carolina.
When the college superstar signed a rookie contract in 1959 with the Philadelphia Warriors for $30,000 (worth $325,426 today), he became the NBA's highest paid player. A decade later, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who won 3 NCAA titles with UCLA, signed a rookie contract with the Milwaukee Bucks for $250,000 (worth $2.2 million today).
As star player after star player was signed, interest in the NBA from fans, sponsors and television began to build, especially when Julius Erving, after playing in the American Basketball Association, was acquired in 1976 by the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers and paid $3 million ($16.6 million today).
"But then along came Larry Bird and Magic Johnson and the rest is history," said Brewer. "The NBA took off. It was like a sparkplug was sparked by those two gentlemen and the same thing seems to be happening right now with a (handful) of these WNBA players, namely Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark. And together, they are igniting a firestorm of interest in the WNBA."
The question is whether that firestorm will last and whether it will one day translate into big money for the league. Money big enough to make playing in the WNBA a lucrative career."
In today's pro sports industry, television contracts are what shape much of the financial landscape for players.
"The big issue is women's basketball doesn't command anything like men's basketball, at least not traditionally, in terms of viewership," said Hicks. "And that translates into lower TV revenue, which means that there's less money to pay players."
In the middle of Clark's rookie season in July, the WNBA signed a new 11-year media rights deal with Disney, Amazon Prime Video and NBC Universal. The deal, valued at $2.2 billion, or $200 million per year, begins with the 2026 season. The WNBA's current deal, which ends in 2025, is worth $60 million per season.
In the same month, the NBA announced its new television agreement with Disney (ABC and ESPN), Comcast (NBA and Peacock) and Amazon which will air all of the NBA's nationally televised games from the 2025-26 season through the 2035-36 season -- an 11-year agreement that will net the NBA roughly $76 billion.
As the 2024 season concluded, some questioned whether the WNBA had negotiated the best deal, given that:
ESPN reported that it averaged 1.2 million viewers for its regular-season WNBA games, up from 440,000 a year prior. By comparison, the NBA’s average rating last season for regular-season games on ESPN and TNT was 1.56 million. That means just 360,000 fewer fans were watching the women's league.
The WNBA All-Star Game with Clark playing drew 3.4 million viewers compared to 850,000 in 2023. The NBA All-Star Game had 5.5 million people watching. The Fever alone garnered five games with more than two million viewers and 18 with more than a million.
Collectively, the full media value across all WNBA team social accounts increased by $49 million due to growth in engagement, according to a report from relometrics.com.
IndyStar reached out to the WNBA, asking why the league signed a long-term media deal even as Clark was coming in and expected to garner major interest in the coming years. It declined to comment.
"TV contracts are one of these things where, oftentimes, you face a balancing act between choosing certainty long-term against the risk that your product is going to become more valuable," said Holden. "It's one of these things where you just don't know what's going to happen so you trade certainty for potential that you could have had more money down the road."
It's reasonable for both sides to wait a year or two, he said, just to see if the numbers are stable or growing and, if so, they can renegotiate at that time.
"Professional sports are part of the capitalist market," said Susan K. Cahn, Professor Emerita of History at the University at Buffalo and an expert on women’s and LGBTQ history, with much of her work focusing on sports. "And so, what are people willing to spend money on?"
People have to realize, she said, that no matter how much Clark has meant to the league in just one year, there have been hundreds of players before her who have paved a path for future WNBA growth.
"There's a lot of them that don't get enough credit for building the boat," said Brewer. "It's been very enlightening for me to look at the impact that Clark's made and the value attribution that she possesses.
"But when you look at it, it wouldn't happen without the rest of them, without all these players and the history of the game."
- Jun 24, 2013
- 32,404
- 34,899
But it looks like the Toronto team name will be the Tempo
- Mar 16, 2010
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Last edited:
- Feb 11, 2008
- 19,755
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80s/90s Sears photo shoot trend. It initially went viral in 2023 I think people were going to those photo studios like back in the day
From AEW
I think it's one of those can't see forest for the trees type of thing.
In addition to the people who are best suited for these things aren't the ones in charge. It's probably interns and or the players themselves.
- Jan 27, 2013
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- Jan 27, 2013
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MVP
Supporter
- Feb 28, 2008
- 83,125
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dacomeup
Supporter
- Jan 20, 2006
- 26,659
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JCPenney photo shoots are a viral trend and people have been recreating 90s looks with them
Hijo Del Promo
formerly xxhu5sl1npnoyxx
- Sep 10, 2002
- 9,870
- 7,102
Juju ballin, no one cares. Smh
darthska
Staff member
- Apr 30, 2004
- 47,254
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