Phoenix Mercury superstar and WNBA legend Diana Taurasi is taking aim at how the WNBA is marketing their game, and their players, as well as how players are getting paid, and how the league treats it’s players.
Basically, Taurasi isn’t happy with how the WNBA operates as a whole, and isn’t shy about sharing her opinion.
“It’s just so sad to me. You know, 15 years in, it’s just such a sad thing to talk about” Taurasi said when discussing the pay disparity in the league, according to ESPN’s Josh Weinfuss.
“We had to go to a communist country to get paid like capitalists, which is so backward to everything that was in the history books in sixth grade. And even then, even within our pay scale, it doesn’t make sense. On a team, you could have seven players making the same amount of money. That doesn’t make sense to me.”
“Something’s missing. I don’t know. I don’t know what the solution is. But what’s going on now, it’s not working. And I use an example of when B.G. [Brittney Griner] was a rookie, she was walking in this arena, and the janitor was making more money than her. But you want Brittney Griner to be this superstar and carry the league into where? The kid’s got to go to Russia [in the offseason] for the next 10 years to get paid what she deserves.
And it’s just shocking to me, as we have the NBA as the best model ever. But the WNBA always finds a way to mess it up. I just don’t get it. I’m so disillusioned with it all … not because of what I had to go through, but for the younger kids. When you’re in it, when you’re playing and you’re young, you don’t worry about these things. You’re just so worried about proving yourself and getting to the playoffs, being a better basketball player.
But when you get older, like Sue [Bird] and I, we start thinking about these things, like it’s been 15 years. I think Sue said it best. In the last 11 years, I think we’ve had a 1.5% increase in our pay salary. I mean, who doesn’t leave that job? It’s like [Lionel] Messi. You play for Barcelona, and then you go back to Argentina and play in a YMCA league because you love the game. And you know what? We come back every single summer because we love the game. It’s pathetic.”
Taurasi says that the WNBA simply doesn’t care that players have to go overseas to play and make money, and noted that a contentious CBA negotiation is likely to take place because of these, and many other, issues.
Of those other issues, Taurasi isn’t thrilled with how the WNBA has marketed the game, or it’s superstars.
“Once again, I just don’t understand how the NBA has made rock stars out of their best players … if you think about what they’ve been able to do marketing-wise. And obviously it started with Magic and Larry and Isiah, and then obviously Jordan took it to the next level. And then you had Kobe, Shaq, and now you have LeBron, Harden, Steph, Durant.
They’ve made rock stars out of these players. And we just have not been able to capitalize on any of that. Not even a little bit. Not even one bit. Like, are you kidding me with some of the stuff that they do marketing and promoting-wise? It’s almost mind-boggling.”