Who signed, and for what? It’s all here.
The conversation over WNBA player pay has been expanding, and heating up, as befitting any major sports league in a the midst of a CBA negotiation, as the WNBA is.
The back-and-forth reached an odd new place on Sunday, however, when NBA PR’s Twitter account sent out this cryptic message.
Multiple inquiries to the league to determine A) which media report this was referring to and B) specifics on which additional items, at what price, increase the overall compensation for players according to the league received this response Monday morning:
Asked for which article or articles NBA PR's tweet from last night regarding WNBA salaries referred to, a WNBA spokesperson emailed, "The tweet was in response to a variety of stories with inaccurate info." Original tweet asserted "inaccurate information reported in the media".
— Howard Megdal (@howardmegdal) April 29, 2019
But the accounting itself is very strange here. No major sports league counts salaries as including much, if anything, beyond, well, salaries. The reporting, as well, is virtually always done based on salary as well. No one from the league, for instance, has attempted (to my knowledge) to make an argument that the NBA salary cap doesn’t reflect the full value of what NBA players earn, or pushed back on reporting that lists LeBron James’ salary with the Los Angeles Lakers but not, for instance, the extra perks or bonuses he may receive.
We also know that teams may dip into a total pool for offseason work that cannot exceed $50,000 under the current CBA. That’s per team, not per player. We will certainly add any specifics with dollar amounts attached if the league provides them.
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All of which is to say: the effort to move this conversation away from base salary, aside from seeming counterproductive, runs against the grain of the reporting done on the NBA itself. But do keep in mind, all numbers reported here are base salary, and do not reflect things like award bonuses or per diem meal allowances or the cost of fuel on flights between games.
But here at High Post Hoops, we believe sunshine is the best disinfectant. Independent of this cryptic Sunday night tweet, we’ve been gathering salary info, diligently cataloguing so that we may provide the public with a look not only at what players make, to better inform the public’s understanding of the CBA stakes, but moreover the salary cap status of each team, allowing for better public and reporter use of those numbers to write the stories that help drive interest and coverage of other professional leagues the world over. Yes, including the NBA.
So come on this journey with us, as we look at the current snapshot of team salary cap structures. We’ll continue gathering, and endeavor to make all final cap sheets available to the public once final rosters are announced. Those of you who have already contributed to this effort: thank you, you have significantly advanced the cause of reporting on the WNBA. If you have more info for us, never hesitate to reach out, confidentiality assured.
Note: teams are listed as over the cap here because these charts include everyone invited to camp. Once teams get down to 12 players, only then will those numbers need to drop below the 2019 salary cap of $996,100, which itself is an increase over the $976,300 salary cap per team in 2018.
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