WNBA players pushing for charter flights

[KevFu]

The G-League makes an estimated $200 million per year in revenue. They also have a set salary of $40k per player (2 way guys and call ups make more because of their NBA income).

The WNBA on a $60 million revenue has a league minimum salary of $62k, 55% more than the G-League's set salary.

The G-League is 30 teams, playing 50 games each (and G stands for naming sponsor Gatorade)

So that's 750 games vs the 12-team WNBA playing 216 total games (For the last year we have revenues for, it's increased to 40 this season).

So the WNBA plays 29% of the games, and makes 30% of the revenue. They're doing just fine.

The NBA also pays a portion of player salaries (up to four players on two-way contracts).

No one is against the WNBA or any other women's league. What they are against is the players calling the economic realities of the leagues a product of sexism. The WNBA doesn't have charter flights because the league has never made a profit in 20+ years and can't afford it, not because they're women.

That's valid. But you're not chatting about it with WNBA players, you're chatting about it with me, who's said no such thing.

 

[eddygee]

Two thoughts:

I think they'd be better off going like April 10th to August 15th. They don't want to compete with the NBA playoffs... but let's be honest, they can't/don't.

They should start right after the NCAA Final Four, and end before college football starts. Because I guarantee you that the largest cross-over section of fans the WNBA has is COLLEGE BASKETBALL fans.


My other thought is that way too many people point to things like that about various leagues and sports as reasons things are bad/doomed/fail/can't grow. It is what it is. And for sure you include that in your thinking. But that doesn't mean you stop or that there's NO PLACE for the "newer" leagues or women's sports.

Like, everyone knows that NFL takes all the eyeballs and most sports fans don't pay attention to college basketball until after the Super. Bowl or even as late as MARCH. That's just the reality. But college basketball has been around forever, longer than the NBA even, and so no one CARES or says that college basketball doesn't produce enough revenue to survive.

But with newer sports leagues, like the WNBA, MLS, or women's soccer... (who had a choice and made the smart one to play in the summer), waaaay too many people act like "it can't work" because it's not as popular as the NBA or NFL.

There's room for all of it.

BTW, a ton of posts in this thread about the tiny sum of $60 million revenue the WNBA makes... anyone want to guess what the revenues for the G-League are?

I didn't give my thought just stated current reality. My actual thoughts is WNBA needs to move on from the Social PR reform stuff that brings out the town idiots and focus on helping themselves. Stop crying about misogyny and expand into markets.
Expanding your geographical footprint adds revenue.

My opinion is the WNBA doesn't want to do the work the other leagues did by having their ownership take on some additional losses in the short to intermediate term in order to flourish long term because they don't truly believe the product will win over enough fans. That's the reason for so much social PR reform and fighting for rights for their players flights, media attention etc vs playing the sport and attracting eyeballs.

They seem to want to PR guilt attention largely. This is just my opinion from observation. If they did all the things like a NWSL has done and expanded and gotten investment but they still didn't grow they'd have a point. It honest seems like they believe if they continue on their current track along with ESPN heavy promoting the league they can line everything up.

Some corporate entity outside its owners will give the league all they want charter flights player salary funding.

Every Major Professional Leagues NFL/NBA/MLB,/NHL/MLS each with multiple billion dollar revenues have all had to follow a strategy to get that revenue.
-Ownership willing to commit and spend even if it meant a period of loss to get later revenues.
- They expanded to markets found ownership all had expansion eras of growth.

 

[eddygee]

The G-League is 30 teams, playing 50 games each (and G stands for naming sponsor Gatorade)

So that's 750 games vs the 12-team WNBA playing 216 total games (For the last year we have revenues for, it's increased to 40 this season).

So the WNBA plays 29% of the games, and makes 30% of the revenue. They're doing just fine.

The NBA also pays a portion of player salaries (up to four players on two-way contracts).




That's valid. But you're not chatting about it with WNBA players, you're chatting about it with me, who's said no such thing.

I wish the conversation on social media like Twitter would move away from immediately calling out ppl making points like OP sexist misogynist to having real business conversations about the why and how. I'm not naive enough to believe that there are no sexist engagement in these convos but that doesn't negate the validity of what's actually being said.

The WNBA needs to go The NWSL route where the league ownership aren't as much worried about PR Buzz and campaigning interest for their league but actually doing the work of getting ownership buy in and getting stadiums built and teams announced. It's easier to thrive and know you've built stability to fight for other stuff later on, once you laid down the foundation.

WNBA has largely skipped all the hard boring but expensive infrastructure stuff and went to straight we're a NBA level organization we need to be treated equal we deserve similar services amentmities. This isn't civil rights where I ABSOLUTELY get it its a basic human right, however this is a business and Sports Entertainment.

 

[KevFu]

I didn't give my thought just stated current reality. My actual thoughts is WNBA needs to move on from the Social PR reform stuff that brings out the town idiots and focus on helping themselves. Stop crying about misogyny and expand into markets.
Expanding your geographical footprint adds revenue.

My opinion is the WNBA doesn't want to do the work the other leagues did by having their ownership take on some additional losses in the short to intermediate term in order to flourish long term because they don't truly believe the product will win over enough fans. That's the reason for so much social PR reform and fighting for rights for their players flights, media attention etc vs playing the sport and attracting eyeballs.

They seem to want to PR guilt attention largely. This is just my opinion from observation. If they did all the things like a NWSL has done and expanded and gotten investment but they still didn't grow they'd have a point. It honest seems like they believe if they continue on their current track along with ESPN heavy promoting the league they can line everything up.

Some corporate entity outside its owners will give the league all they want charter flights player salary funding.

Every Major Professional Leagues NFL/NBA/MLB,/NHL/MLS each with multiple billion dollar revenues have all had to follow a strategy to get that revenue.
-Ownership willing to commit and spend even if it meant a period of loss to get later revenues.
- They expanded to markets founds ownership all had expansion eras of growth.

Well, you need to separate the players speaking on social issues from business.

The WNBA itself has no problem "doing the work." They've been vetting expansion candidates for a while now, they're GOING to expand, but they want to do it in a way where they find committed owners who will keep a team in one location and actually grow it; Not people looking for a 5-year buy and flip -- because that's how teams relocate. Of 18 franchies that have existed in the WNBA, ELEVEN have moved or folded. They don't want that.

The WNBA players are more vocal about social issues than their NBA counterparts because they don't have the risk that NBA players have. They can make more money NOT being a WNBA player -- playing overseas or using their degrees (Which, because of the nature of how small and difficult to crack the WNBA is... they virtually ALL have college degrees, making them statistically more educated than all the other sports leagues).

One NBA guy says a bad word about China and it costs the leagues billions of dollars. Not a problem in the WNBA.

Combine that with there's just MORE social issues that affects the players in the WNBA compared to all the other leagues. Just as the NBA players talk more about race than NHL players because the NBA is predominantly black and the NHL is predominantly white... . The WNBA is predominantly black, entirely female, and has a far larger percentage of openly gay players compared to anyone else. They're automatically going to talk about race, gender, abortion and LGBTQ than the NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB, MLS or even women's soccer.

When you're a women's league that doesn't get eyeballs, you can say whatever you want (Geno Auriemma at UConn is the master at this) and it's going to make MORE people look at you, not less.

 

[KevFu]

I wish the conversation on social media like Twitter would move away from immediately calling out ppl making points like OP sexist misogynist to having real business conversations about the why and how. I'm not naive enough to believe that there are no sexust engagement in these convos but that doesn't negate the validity of what's actually being said.

The WNBA needs to go The NWSL route where the league ownership aren't as much worried about PR Buzz and campaigning interst for their league but actually doing the work of getting ownership buy in and getting stadiums built and teams announced. It's easier to thrive and know you've built stability to fight for other stuff later on, once you laid down the foundation.

WNBA has largely skipped all the hard boring but expensive infrastructure stuff and went to straight we're a NBA level organization we need to be treated equal we deserve similar services amentmities. This isn't civil rights where I ABSOLUTELY get it its a basic human right, however this is a business Sports Entertainment.

Well, the reason for your perception is because of the vast differences in how the WNBA came from Year 1 to now, vs the NWSL (which is only a third of the age).

Why did the WNBA skip infrastructure and go right to the "PR" stuff you're talking about? Because in Year One... THEY HAD THE INFRASTRUCTURE.

1997 - Cleveland, Charlotte, Houston, Sacramento, New York, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Utah. All NBA cities, all backed by NBA owners. All playing in NBA Arenas (Selling only lower bowl seats).

It wasn't until Year Seven that you had the first two teams go "independent" from an NBA arena (Connecticut, and Charlotte when the Hornets left for NOLA). Over the next seven years, it sorted itself out. Who could stand on their own, who couldn't. And now in the next seven years, it's been consistent and stable and standing as is, and it's time to grow.

 

[eddygee]

Well, the reason for your perception is because of the vast differences in how the WNBA came from Year 1 to now, vs the NWSL (which is only a third of the age).

Why did the WNBA skip infrastructure and go right to the "PR" stuff you're talking about? Because in Year One... THEY HAD THE INFRASTRUCTURE.

1997 - Cleveland, Charlotte, Houston, Sacramento, New York, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Utah. All NBA cities, all backed by NBA owners. All playing in NBA Arenas (Selling only lower bowl seats).

It wasn't until Year Seven that you had the first two teams go "independent" from an NBA arena (Connecticut, and Charlotte when the Hornets left for NOLA). Over the next seven years, it sorted itself out. Who could stand on their own, who couldn't. And now in the next seven years, it's been consistent and stable and standing as is, and it's time to grow.

Look I get what you're trying to say bit it's awfully a gloss over IMO. The W went from 7 yrs from 97 to 04 if not a little longer largely as co tenants to NBA teams. It was a failure of the league in the last 20 yrs to see hey we don't have this infrastructure we need to build one not just get a new set of owners when it fails in one place move to the next. It's been proven getting potential owners willing to invest in infrastructure is the best way to grow your league. That infrastructure tie makes it a bit harder to do 5 yr flip and walk aways.

Which gets me back to my point where they have this Big missing gap where they did nothing but fail. 2004 to 2019. The last 4 yrs has seen them go the PR route which as you alluded to (good point btw with Auriemma). Yes it gets you talked about but it doesn't pay the bills. I'd argue the WNBA has successfully used every ounce of that strategy yet it still lands them short At some point a business has to self invest to get where it wants to be.

That's all I'm saying. WNBA has been talking expansion for yearrssss. The few WNBA fans on my time line have started openly mocking the WNBA and their hey were expanding claims. Right after the pandemic 2020 year "we've narrowed it down to 4 to 6 markets expecting announcement the end of the year". Next update we have 8 to 12 very interested markets, we're looking at expansion by 2025-26. It's like Nike ok Just Do It!, at some point it just feels like a ruse to keep the proverbial ball rolling as most people recognize they need to expand to make money. You have to spend money to make money.

 

[Voight]

I didn't give my thought just stated current reality. My actual thoughts is WNBA needs to move on from the Social PR reform stuff that brings out the town idiots and focus on helping themselves. Stop crying about misogyny and expand into markets.
Expanding your geographical footprint adds revenue.

My opinion is the WNBA doesn't want to do the work the other leagues did by having their ownership take on some additional losses in the short to intermediate term in order to flourish long term because they don't truly believe the product will win over enough fans. That's the reason for so much social PR reform and fighting for rights for their players flights, media attention etc vs playing the sport and attracting eyeballs.

They seem to want to PR guilt attention largely. This is just my opinion from observation. If they did all the things like a NWSL has done and expanded and gotten investment but they still didn't grow they'd have a point. It honest seems like they believe if they continue on their current track along with ESPN heavy promoting the league they can line everything up.

Some corporate entity outside its owners will give the league all they want charter flights player salary funding.

Every Major Professional Leagues NFL/NBA/MLB,/NHL/MLS each with multiple billion dollar revenues have all had to follow a strategy to get that revenue.
-Ownership willing to commit and spend even if it meant a period of loss to get later revenues.
- They expanded to markets founds ownership all had expansion eras of growth.

MLS is a great example of this. Lamar Hunt & Phillip Anschutz basically bankrolled the league for its first decade which helped it say solvent. Now the MLS is collecting $500million dollar expansion fees less than 30 years after being established.

Do you know much it costs to charter aircraft? Just curious. I'm actually in the industry, so I am familiar with the costs to charter aircraft and I'm a major proponent of private aviation, but I can't see owners wanting to spend another roughly $1M (conservative estimate) so their (mostly anonymous) players can big time it on a Boeing business jet or VIP Delta/Sun Country/ Etc 737.

Math:

Hourly Charter: $12,500 (optimistic estimate)

Repositioning: Lets say 1 hr for each round trip

Total Utilization: 20 Road Games, 40 flights. 1.5 hr avg trip length= $750,000

Lets say 20 Hours of repositioning: $250,000

Also lets not forget misc expenses: Ramp Fees, Crew Overnights, catering crew per diems, FET Tax: Easily at least another $50,000 (optimistic)

The average WNBA payroll is what $1.3M???

So Essentially, the private aviation request made by the players is akin to doubling the payroll

Where is the money going to come from???

Also assuming the average WNBA traveling contingent is 18 people and they are paying $700/ seat on Delta, current airline costs are roughly $252,000. So asking for private flights is not only ridiculous but dramatically costlier than the current situation


These players are mostly anonymous (outside of Griner) so the player safety angle is completely illegitimate

+ Griner is only a known "name" because she broke the law in a foreign country and her PR team did overtime.

 

[Voight]

Mercury says they followed rules on Brittney Griner travel after airport incident

Brittney Griner’s agent said the league has only approved a “mix of charter and a select number of commercial flights” for her this season.

sports.yahoo.com

More fall out from DFW incident

"only approved" sounds so pretentious. Sorry, you're not LeBron James or Steph Curry.

 

[AintLifeGrand]

Well, you need to separate the players speaking on social issues from business.

The WNBA itself has no problem "doing the work." They've been vetting expansion candidates for a while now, they're GOING to expand, but they want to do it in a way where they find committed owners who will keep a team in one location and actually grow it; Not people looking for a 5-year buy and flip -- because that's how teams relocate. Of 18 franchies that have existed in the WNBA, ELEVEN have moved or folded. They don't want that.

The WNBA players are more vocal about social issues than their NBA counterparts because they don't have the risk that NBA players have. They can make more money NOT being a WNBA player -- playing overseas or using their degrees (Which, because of the nature of how small and difficult to crack the WNBA is... they virtually ALL have college degrees, making them statistically more educated than all the other sports leagues).

One NBA guy says a bad word about China and it costs the leagues billions of dollars. Not a problem in the WNBA.

Combine that with there's just MORE social issues that affects the players in the WNBA compared to all the other leagues. Just as the NBA players talk more about race than NHL players because the NBA is predominantly black and the NHL is predominantly white... . The WNBA is predominantly black, entirely female, and has a far larger percentage of openly gay players compared to anyone else. They're automatically going to talk about race, gender, abortion and LGBTQ than the NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB, MLS or even women's soccer.

When you're a women's league that doesn't get eyeballs, you can say whatever you want (Geno Auriemma at UConn is the master at this) and it's going to make MORE people look at you, not less.

This is precisely why the WNBA will always languish in obscurity. These women are supposed to be role models. Hard to sell a "woke" narrative that is only taken seriously on college campuses, and the urban corridors of the nation's Bluest Cities to your average suburban family or your average "Joe Sports Fan".

 

[MMC]

How is the WNBA going to expand? Why would someone buy an expansion team when the league doesn't make money?

 

[LadyStanley]

Because franchise value increases?

Sources: WNBA allowing public charter service

The WNBA, facing increased scrutiny around its travel situation, has allowed teams this season to fly on a public chartering service with certain protocols in place, league sources said.

www.espn.com

JSX operates in like 5 markets and kind of is a public charter service. Which some teams have used. And sometimes the airline is able to do a "pop up" flight to allow travel to a specific city.

 

[Mike C]

lol they werent harassed…

Alex Stein (a public figure ) taunted Brittany Griner ( a public figure) in the DFW airport over legitimate issues regarding her character and hypocrisy.

Its absurd how the media/ certain people believe any criticism, humor directed at or light made of of the wnba is automatically branded a “bigot/sexist/ homophobic “ etc

Hypocrisy--key word


At least stands for the pre game song now

I wish the conversation on social media like Twitter would move away from immediately calling out ppl making points like OP sexist misogynist to having real business conversations about the why and how. I'm not naive enough to believe that there are no sexust engagement in these convos but that doesn't negate the validity of what's actually being said.

The WNBA needs to go The NWSL route where the league ownership aren't as much worried about PR Buzz and campaigning interst for their league but actually doing the work of getting ownership buy in and getting stadiums built and teams announced. It's easier to thrive and know you've built stability to fight for other stuff later on, once you laid down the foundation.

WNBA has largely skipped all the hard boring but expensive infrastructure stuff and went to straight we're a NBA level organization we need to be treated equal we deserve similar services amentmities. This isn't civil rights where I ABSOLUTELY get it its a basic human right, however this is a business Sports Entertainment.

Just tell 'em you don't just hate them, say you hate everybody

 

[eddygee]

MLS is a great example of this. Lamar Hunt & Phillip Anschutz basically bankrolled the league for its first decade which helped it say solvent. Now the MLS is collecting $500million dollar expansion fees less than 30 years after being established.

Spot on they seem to want to short cut fast path the hardworking stuff and use Social PR reform campaigning to get the things they want. When you're to the point that even some allies on social media I've seen start saying hey the Commish and the league need to stop talking the talk but actually doing stuff it tells you they are failing.

I will say they used the Social PR reform angle to a tee. They were able to parlay the Griner incident along with other Social PR reform stuff to get some corporate entities to essentially make donation contributions so the league could do extra pay stuff for players.

You can only go to that well once but at some point you have to build a better biz plan beyond saying hey we're gonna expand to some cities.

 

[daver]

Did you see what the guard for the Dallas Wings did during the national anthem during the last game?

No, what did they do?

 

[KevFu]

Look I get what you're trying to say bit it's awfully a gloss over IMO. The W went from 7 yrs from 97 to 04 if not a little longer largely as co tenants to NBA teams. It was a failure of the league in the last 20 yrs to see hey we don't have this infrastructure we need to build one not just get a new set of owners when it fails in one place move to the next. It's been proven getting potential owners willing to invest in infrastructure is the best way to grow your league. That infrastructure tie makes it a bit harder to do 5 yr flip and walk aways.

Which gets me back to my point where they have this Big missing gap where they did nothing but fail. 2004 to 2019. The last 4 yrs has seen them go the PR route which as you alluded to (good point btw with Auriemma). Yes it gets you talked about but it doesn't pay the bills. I'd argue the WNBA has successfully used every ounce of that strategy yet it still lands them short At some point a business has to self invest to get where it wants to be.

That's all I'm saying. WNBA has been talking expansion for yearrssss. The few WNBA fans on my time line have started openly mocking the WNBA and their hey were expanding claims. Right after the pandemic 2020 year "we've narrowed it down to 4 to 6 markets expecting announcement the end of the year". Next update we have 8 to 12 very interested markets, we're looking at expansion by 2025-26. It's like Nike ok Just Do It!, at some point it just feels like a ruse to keep the proverbial ball rolling as most people recognize they need to expand to make money. You have to spend money to make money.

The problem I have trying to reply to you on this is that you're taking a stance that has nothing to do with facts or data, but is all about perception, and different people are going to have different perceptions.

I'd point out that:

1. Like almost every topic, The TV/radio talking head industry has taught people to think in "either/or" binary mindsets. You're acting like the PLAYERS SPEAKING and League operations are a mutually exclusive choice that can't co-exist. PR is going to happen at all times.

2. You're saying "Just do it already" when we've seen decades of evidence here in the Business form of just how long this stuff takes. We were talking about the NHL expanding to 32 teams for EIGHT YEARS before Seattle took the ice. We're still talking about the Coyotes after 15 years and the Oakland A's after 30 years. ("The A's can't financially compete in their stadium" is a fundamental truth on which Moneyball is based, which was known to the world 20 years ago).

This is precisely why the WNBA will always languish in obscurity. These women are supposed to be role models. Hard to sell a "woke" narrative that is only taken seriously on college campuses, and the urban corridors of the nation's Bluest Cities to your average suburban family or your average "Joe Sports Fan".

I really don't want to bring the Fox News culture wars garbage into this...

But, uh, they don't put sports teams anywhere BUT Blue Cities. Show me a Red City with a team. Hell, show me a Red City period.

 

[KevFu]

No, what did they do?

I dunno. Neither of us were watching. And that's the point. No one would know what Brittney Greiner even looked like in the airport if Fox News wasn't dog-whistling their base at the black lesbian who took a knee.

You really need to ask yourself why everyone is so riled up about Greiner, but no one has any clue who Bruce Maxwell is.

 

[LadyStanley]

Aces reprimanded by league for improper use of flight service

The Aces were forced to cancel a flight on JSX, a public charter-flight service, during their most recent road trip.

www.reviewjournal.com

Aces got JSX to do some popup flights, league made them cancel one leg. probably fined.

 

[End on a Hinote]

Why can't people seem to realize that equality in pro sports requires $$$$, something that the league doesn't have enough of.

 

[joelef]

Sports are being treated equally. There all subjected to market forces why so women sports think they should be immuned?

 

[Seattle King]

Personally, I will be glad when women's pro sports have either failed out of existence or they STFU and be happy that they get to exist due to the subsidies of their superior male counterparts.
Accepting all the subsidies and still constantly whining about not having enough is a bad look and really should be directed at the "fanbase."

 

[KevFu]

Why can't people seem to realize that equality in pro sports requires $$$$, something that the league doesn't have enough of.

The number of people who pop into this thread to say what you're saying -- when literally no one in the thread has said the opposite -- is really quite staggering.

 

[Rob]

Has trying to shame fans into buying more tickets ever worked at any level?

 

[Garl]

Can anyone name a successful female league?

 

[KevFu]

Can anyone name a successful female league?

Yeah, all of them.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

Yeah, all of them.

Yeah, no. 26 years of existence with 26 years without turning a profit isn't being successful.