The WNBA Needs A Reality Check

one of the most contentious topics when it comes to basketball is women's basketball and to be more specific the wnba and not just the league itself but the salaries that the players are earning in the wnba in comparison to the nba and over time some of these illogical claims have spread from mainstream media to a lot of casual and impressionable basketball fans who have been given the completely wrong and misrepresented idea of what the reality of the situation is [Music] what's good everybody it's terese and yes i finally brought myself to make another video regarding the wnba because for those of you unfamiliar i actually posted a different video defending the wnba and the reception towards that video was not very positive and it is safe to say that my views have changed like quite a bit and they have changed through nothing but more research and statistics all of which i will bring to you today and hopefully we can have a civil discussion about this in the comments section and a huge reason that i'm making this in the first place is so that we could discover a better method to make the wnba a better and more entertaining product and before we get into that i would just like to quickly mention that the background footage in this video will be of women's basketball fails and low lights mainly because i have nothing else to put in the background so keep that in mind and all the footage is from a youtube channel an instagram account known as women ba films a smaller youtube channel and instagram account which i'm heavily encouraging you to follow they're at the top of the description and the content is super funny but i don't want to get across the idea that the wnba is just this joke of a league that is only ever making funny bloopers for us to watch but we'll get more into that a little bit later but as for now let's get into the first topic of discussion that we really need to discuss the first thing that i want to get out of the way as quickly as possible is that i do not think that posting misogynistic comments such as how wnba players should be in the kitchen or that they shouldn't be playing basketball they should just be making sandwiches i think that they are all really immature and really unproductive and i get it a lot of these comments are more so in reaction to some of the outlandish claims made by wnba players rather than people who just willingly go out of their way to the wnba instagram account and trash on players that way but regardless of which reason you're doing it there is no room in this world for unnecessary hatred like that however there is room for thought out responses and that's where i try to come in and over time several youtubers began posting videos about the wnba a series that multiple youtubers would chip in on and multiple parts would eventually come out and gain millions and millions of views the series took a very aggressive approach and rather than really breaking the wage gap down piece by piece he kind of gave some evidence but the video revolves more heavily around showing low lights of the wnba in contrast to the nba and overall the video did very well the like to dislike ratio was very positive and the general youtube community seemed to really like the video and it wasn't just men and young kids as many would assume who had positive reactions towards the video i mean check out what these women had to say about it as they were reacting in contrast to how a male youtuber known as flake reacts reacted to these videos it was just very very disappointing um how trash these uh wnba players are we need to be paid because you command the same respect the game is just as good girl you love competitive and isn't britney grinder like really good this is hard to watch but the problem is these wnba players keep talking about the nba and how their league is just as competitive but the fact of the matter is the only reason the wnba is still a thing is because the nba is keeping a legal eye before we go on i have to be honest they do talk a lot of smack like a lot you need to be paid because you command the same respect the game is just as good [Music] beautiful daughter on the way you know what i'm saying we gonna make sure the wnba gets the attention it deserves by the time you know i'm saying my daughter's here you know what i'm saying she's gonna be the first one to be doing windmills throwback double back reverse stunts you know what i'm saying at all fast no it's a fact so the reason that i wanted to put that out there was to show that there are plenty of reasonable people from all ends of the diversity spectrum who understand the harsh reality of the wnba even if it is presented in a pretty aggressive form flight reacts chose a very interesting tactic that i hear very often that is if you don't agree with me or in this case if you don't want wnba players making more money then i will insult you and call you a bad person this is obviously such an unproductive take to have and i know we're talking about flight reacts here but still the problem is not that people don't want wnba players to be paid more but it's how they get paid is where the issue really comes from my biggest question is where do these wnba players want their money to come from if they want salaries like the nba then they would just be stealing money from the nba money that they do not deserve players like lebron kobe steph curry they're so good at the game and help make the nba what it is but the wnba product is simply not as good let's speak about the wage gap now and obviously the amount of money that the wnba players are getting in comparison to the men is not even close but as all sensible humans agree it makes sense and the amount of revenue per each league is almost the biggest factor here and the revenue numbers change per whatever source but it doesn't really matter because we all know that the wnba doesn't generate anything close to the nba i mean one report claimed that in 2018 the nba made 7.4 billion dollars while the wnba made just 60 million which is just an unbelievable difference honestly however as a lot of people will claim that the wnba simply wants their fair share as kelsey plum a wnba player said i'm tired of people thinking that us players are asking for the same type of money as nba players we are asking for the same percentage of revenue shared within our cba nba players receive around 50 percent of the shared revenue within their league whereas we receive around 20 and i have heard several counter arguments to this claim one of them being that it is just wnba's players faults for not being good enough negotiators and i don't really like this argument because there's an underlying issue here and okay what if the wnba players get 50 of the league's revenue well suddenly coaches are being paid half of their salaries the same goes with the general managers the janitors all these people would just quit because they would be paid like minimum wage the wnba doesn't earn enough revenue to pay the players half of it i mean it doesn't take anything more than a wikipedia search to see this the wnba is not able to support itself during the mid 2000s the nba spent more than 10 million dollars per year to keep the wnba financially solvent in 2007 teams were estimated to be losing 1.5 million to 2 million a year the league has begun to do better financially in recent years in december 2010 donna orender said that the league had its first ever cash flow positive team for the 2010 season in 2011 three teams were profitable and in 2013 six of the league's 12 teams reported a profit and no this is not just from wikipedia you could find this information anywhere i just wanted to prove how little effort you need to put in to realize this so yes on the surface it sounds great for wnba players to be paid 50 of the league's revenue but i don't even think that wnba players truly want this because if they're unable to pay coaches general managers staff members janitors anything more than minimum wage suddenly they're playing at a local rec center with some teenager as their coach trying to add more to their resume so that they could get into their top sports management college choice everything needs context and the revenue share argument failed in every way to get that context now let's just get into a little bit more controversy surrounding wnba players as of recent the first one being with nba player andre iguodala and i'm sure that many of you already know this situation but if not well here we go back in july andre iguodala tweeted number 23 from the mystics is nice talking about wnba player ariel powers a tweet that she retweeted saying put some respect on my name or keep this tweet to yourself and she would go on to say in another tweet we deal with disrespect on the daily so for someone like you at andre iguodala to tweet that off the same device you could have looked me up on is unacceptable mind you commentators said my name would it have been the same if i was a guy look at the pic i didn't forget i said what i said so ariel powers had an issue with andre iguodala simply saying that number 23 is nice and aerial powers for whatever reason took this as disrespectful this is a massive issue even when nba players tried to be respectful these wnba players find a way to be upset with it she was upset because andre iguodala didn't mention her name in the tweet rather just her jersey number that was all and if you compare the way that she reacted to nfl player kenneth murray when another nfl player jamal adams tweeted number nine i like the way you play football my guy which kenneth responded appreciate that bro i mean it's just absurd ariel powers isn't entitled to anything this sense of entitlement envy jealousy and pettiness is a huge reason why the wnba is just as disrespected as she mentions in her tweet and how oblivious she is to this fact is unbelievable but it gets even crazier because she screenshotted an article from tmz of all sources with a headline saying nba star andre iguodala i don't want my daughter playing basketball and becoming a lesbian if you look into this article first of all it's from tmz so keep that in mind but the allegation of this claim came from the mother of andre iguodala's daughter who was in court testifying as to why she should get 58 000 a month over the 16 000 she's already getting she goes on to claim that her daughter is a genius and has a 151 iq and is already reading harry potter books we are dealing with a mad woman who is spreading false accusations about iguodala and that is the source that aerial powers uses to defame iggy what started with a simple compliment turned out to be nothing but lies and false allegations that had nothing to do with the situation in the first place when people bring up things that are irrelevant to the main point that's how you could tell that they are acting out of anger jealousy petty and most importantly fear of losing that was a disgusting reaction from ariel powers and the amazing part is how she will most likely never understand another situation that we need to discuss was back when brittany griner claimed that she was better than demarcus cousins and that she could beat him one versus one here's the whole situation i'm glad she's that confident in her abilities but um there's also a little delusion like the confidence bg but i don't know if that's gonna happen it's not a walk in the park over here he says you'd be no better than the third best host player on the men's team i'm just going to use that to feel feel this i mean i'm better but um and i know that that kind of gets saddled but it's okay it's okay it's okay little man but i would like to see that i would pay to see that i pay for our ticket front row though i got to be front row my money's on bg everybody i got cars on that one if there's no referee i'm gonna go to the atm and i'm gonna sell my house and i'm gonna put all my money on demarcus cousins and it is really clear here that anybody with a functioning brain knows that demarcus cousins would body britney greiner to death and this wouldn't even be a competition remember this is prime boogie cousins the dude would destroy the majority of the nba in a one versus one game but that's not even the main issue the main issue is that britney grinder is so delusional that she resorts to calling demarcus cousins a little man again what is it with these wnba players just lying and insulting nba players it really does nothing good for their reputation at all and ironically is what makes the wnba as disrespected as it is it is the players not fans after all the wnba is hated for all of these absurd claims and for whatever reason they choose to not learn and live in their own delusion another somewhat relevant topic throws us back to 2019 when the mcdonald's high school dunk contest occurred and a girl beat the boys with a dunk that was not nearly as impressive it's the 2019 powerade jam fest here at wheeler high school in marietta georgia the crowd is ready to go they've been waiting for some time your pick may actually take over let's see it scotty hey theo ratliff over there telling me no he can't do [Laughter] the it and all flying that is a beautiful shot oh that rolls through but not one on the ground yeah but that the fact that it wasn't a clean dunk is going to take points away that is special and you're talking about six foot three that's a winner right there not since 2004 with candace parker has there been a female winner so i'm excited to crown you this year's champion i honestly don't find as much of an issue with this at all it's a high school dunk contest everybody there was happy and content with the result nobody really cares it wasn't meant to be such a big deal so i don't know why so many people are acting like it was and to be honest i've never seen a girl do a dunk like that especially when you consider that she is in high school so it was pretty impressive of course the dunks performed by the dudes were amazing as well in fact i've not even seen some of them in nba dunk contest but really dude who cares about that the next situation comes from espn when tracy mcgrady suggests that the wnba should consider lowering their goals and wnba all-star brianna stewart had something to say about it i got a question and this is not a shot at women uh in in basketball well good because you're gonna be able to know i had this talk i think me and rebecca lobo had this talk uh during the hall of fame and i was talking about um doing something that gets you know not your average fans people that don't watch wnba basketball what can we do to get those fans to tune in and i was like why can't we lower the goal to at least nine nine and a half feet because i think for somebody that don't watch wnba basketball to have women dunking on other women would definitely bring more excitement to that game and have you know those guys that don't watch wma basketball tune in and you get more fans that way what do you think about that i mean my my thought on it is you know i've been playing basketball on a 10-foot hoop my whole life so to move it to nine and a half it's going to take a long time to get used to that and then also like we're only playing basketball to dunk like i'm not sure no you playing like you know i'm on you just want to see me dunk on somebody i don't know the skill level is off the charts in in women's basketball right but i think as far as bringing the entertainment yeah i understand that for sure that element i i think you know you're getting more fans of course tmac was just giving a suggestion what if the wnba were to invest in the idea and brianna did seem very aggressive and i actually don't really find an issue with this she has been accustomed to playing on 10 foot goals her whole life so she really didn't want that to be a consideration but again it was just a suggestion and she got quite aggressive with tracy mcgrady but something that i don't think brianna stewart understands is that yes more viewers would watch the wnba i mean think about that how fun would that be does brianna stewart not understand that that's a part of what makes men's basketball so exciting and is something that women lack if you would watch the wnba if they could dunk leave a like right now i guarantee there's going to be a lot more likes than usual maybe that's a fundamental issue here some of these players just don't understand why what they don't bring to the game is so entertaining there was another issue where an nba team attacked luca doncic on twitter for showing off a wnba jersey all that luca did was post a video with him and a wnba jersey with no bad intentions at all and the minnesota lynx responded by saying says a guy who hasn't been to a wnba game all season but got sent a jersey and recorded a scripted video what are with all of these attacks does the wnba not understand why they continued to be so disrespected if they simply stopped all of these senseless claims and insults the league would be left alone at least much more we also got another comment from skyler diggins a wnba player who just attacked harrison barnes for absolutely no reason at all when she said players in the nba get about 50 of the revenue for women the percentage is in the 20s so before we even talk about base salary or anything like that we don't even get paid the same percentage of the revenue that we bring in which is kind of unbelievable people try to hijack this issue and say that women's basketball may not be as interesting a game because they disparage women in sports period but we don't even make the same percentage of revenue and jersey sales we don't get any of it the men do and i have had a top five jersey for three or four years in the wnba i'm the highest paid player on the dallas wings and my salary is in the low six figures harrison barnes the highest paid player on the dallas mavericks made 24 million last season he's definitely younger than me do you know his stats was he an all-star i mean it doesn't matter but last year i was first team all wnba which only goes to five players i was also a wnba all-star for the third time this quote just turned into her bragging about how awesome and great she is at basketball and again if you're getting the theme here these wnba players just love to attack innocent nba players for no reason at all the majority of wnba fans are men the stats back it up if this were all about sexism or hatred or anything then why don't women watch the wnba do women also hate women or is it only the man's fault claiming that the only difference between the nba and the wnba is gender is so unbelievably foolish and wrong that's like saying there is a wage gap between the nba and the nba g league because the letter g in the nba g league no the games are just totally different one is much more entertaining for the vast majority of fans listen i want the wnba to do well but we can't act like the wnba is not being supported why not well it literally is the wnba would not be here without the nba think about that when the nba began all they had was an mba nobody funding it and for these players and even teams to act so entitled that is what keeps the league underground if you really want to maximize a product then market it to younger girls don't focus on why men are bad go to high schools and middle schools across the nation and introduce a leak to them it doesn't have to be about spending money to market just host events all across the nation and invite younger people to come play or watch offer free tickets every once in a while because the last time that i checked there are plenty of seats available and most importantly instead of focusing on how bad men are focus on how good women are but until these changes are made the wnba will continue to be the laughing stock of the sports world not because of these gross men out there but because of this stubborn and entitled attitude we get from the wnba i want what is most for our future women and young female basketball players and i want my daughter one day to be able to play in a league that isn't as disrespected as wnba is right now but it starts with changes in the league stop blaming others and have a reality check

Channel: TREESE

Views: 4,331,766

Keywords: wnba, the wnba needs a reality check, wnba reality check, wnba basketball, wnba lowlights, wnba bloopers, wnba fails, wnba vs nba, why the wnba has a wage gap, nba, basketball, family friendly, family, brittney griner, candace parker, sue bird, diana taurasi, breanna stewart, skylar diggins, aerial powers, wnba controversy, aerial powers andre igoudala, brittney griner demarcus cousins, brittney griner vs demarcus cousins, brittney griner little man, womens basketball, money

Id: uIRo9VUm2u8

Length: 20min 37sec (1237 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 28 2020