The NBA, the WNBA and the Pro Sports Pay Gap: Your Questions Answered

WSJ What’s News

The Wall Street Journal

News, Daily News

4.1 • 4.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 May 2024

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark lit up this year’s March Madness basketball tournament and propelled the women’s final to top the men’s in TV viewership, the gap between men’s and women’s sports looked like it might be starting to close. But that’s not the case when it comes to starting salaries. WSJ senior sports reporter Rachel Bachman answers listeners' questions about the economics behind this difference, the future of pay in the WNBA and how we might reframe the conversation about pay equity in professional sports. Annmarie Fertoli hosts. Further Reading Wait, Caitlin Clark Is Only Getting Paid $76,000? How Nike Won the Battle for Caitlin Clark NCAA Women Beat Men in Finals’ Ratings for First Time—but Got 99% Less TV Money Why NCAA Women Got More Viewers Than the Men But Less TV Money Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	OCI is the single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs.
0:07.0	Do more and spend less like Uber 8 by 8 and DataBrix Mosaic.
0:12.0	Take a free test drive of OCI at Oracle.com
0:15.5	slash Wall Street.
0:16.8	Hey what's news listeners, it's Sunday May 5th. I'm Anne-Marie Fertoli.
0:24.0	And I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal, and this is What's News Sunday, the show where we tackle the big questions about the biggest stories in the news by reaching out to our colleagues
0:34.0	across the newsroom to help explain what's happening in our world.
0:38.0	This week we're answering your questions about pay equity in sports after the rise of basketball phenom Caitlin Clark and record
0:44.6	viewership of the NCAA women's final. Could Caitlin Clark's rising star
0:50.6	mean a new dawn for women's basketball?
0:52.8	Clark is the Iowa superstar who helped drive the NCAA women's
0:56.3	tournament final to an all-time record of 18.9
0:59.5	million viewers last month.
1:01.1	As a reminder, that was nearly four times what the women's
1:03.6	final drew just two years ago. It also surpassed the NCAA men's final for the
1:08.4	first time in history. Clark went number one in the WNBA draft and was picked up by the Indiana Fever.
1:15.0	And after all that, her starting salary this season will be $76,535.
1:21.0	That reveal sparked a good deal of discussion from fans and it's renewing
1:25.6	conversations about pay equity in professional sports. Even President
1:29.6	Biden weighed in. In a tweet he said it's time women are paid what they deserve. We asked you
1:34.4	our listeners what questions you have about the economic differences between
1:37.8	men's and women's professional sports and you delivered. Many of you thought the
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Wall Street Journal, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Wall Street Journal and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.