Napheesa Collier Dropping FACTS

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GopherLady

GopherLady

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This woman wrote and delivered this statement perfectly.
Napheesa Collier: How do you plan to address the officiating issues?
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert: Well, only the losers complain about the refs.
Phee: Why are players like Caitlin, Paige and Angel, who are driving massive revenue, are making so little for their first 4 years?
Cathy: Caitlin should be grateful she makes $60 Million off the court because without the platform that the WNBA gives her, she wouldn't make anything.
Cathy also added: Players should be on their knees, thanking their lucky stars for the media rights deal I got them.
 

WNBA players will never have leverage because they put out an inferior product that doesn't make money.
 

This is jaw dropping. Can a player get the death penalty? Could she actually be put to death?? Seriously, heaven knows what fallout there is from this. If she's merely relating actual conversations that took place, is that punishable in league rules?
 

If the Commissioner said that, that's pretty eye-opening. Of course, I'm assuming none of this is recorded anywhere. And the fact that these conversations allegedly happened about 6 months ago, but weren't deemed worthy to be aired publicly until after the Lynx dropped a series that included an epic collapse raises more than a little skepticism.
 



Basketball in slow motion.

Didn't we blow a 20 point in the third quarter in Game 2?
 

kg21 said:
Basketball in slow motion.

Didn't we blow a 20 point in the third quarter in Game 2?
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It's unfair to women to compare them against men. Instead of comparing the athletic physical ability, compare the fundamental skills. When you do that, you can admire the elite skills that Napheesa Collier, Caitlin Clark, and Paige Bueckers bring.

It is similar to women's tennis. Physically, the #1 World Women's Tennis Player couldn't beat the #100 men's player, but watching the women play, you realize their elite skills. That's how a person should watch women's basketball and support the elite skills on display.

After watching Cathy Engelbert come out last season wearing a Lady Liberty dress, after the outright robbery of a Lynx championship, I believe Engelbert has to go. I hope this starts a steamroller of momentum to remove Engelbert as commissioner.
 

It occurs to me that, when you take a step back, this is a classic labor/ownership struggle. The owners and the league heierarchy think that they ARE the game and the players are just the equipment. (Yes, I borrowed that from North Dallas Forty.) Well, let the owners lace up their shoes and see if anyone wants to watch them play.
 

Outside of the USA National soccer team, I don't watch any women's sports but the Lynx and most other WNBA teams draw remarkably well and have some of the most loyal fans in all of professional sports.

A stat I read is the NBA's MLE contract is $14M which is more than all of the WNBA player salaries combined. Englebert gave a statement today and didn't deny saying what Collier accused her of. Those comments went way beyond typical CBA posturing IMO.

She's getting canned and rightfully so. Who will ever forget her showing up for Game 7 of the WNBA Finals last year wearing a NY Liberty outfit and watched the refs singlehandedly rob the Lynx of the Title with that bs call at the end of regulation.
 



So the gist is the WNBA commissioner appears to be pretty crappy. But Collier's list of offenses are officiating and rookie player pay. The play in question against Collier was clean. I don't watch a ton of the WNBA (pretty much just the playoffs, and the couple games a year I take my kids to, so my opinion may be skewed), and as I understand it, this is a long running complaint. But that specific play was incidental contact.

As far as the pay goes, the WNBA has literally never been net revenue positive. The NBA has been propping up the league from the get-go, with it subsidizing the WNBA's $50MM revenue shortfall in 2024. But you want more pay? From what revenue? They're already losing money.

Caitlyn Clark's 1-year salary compared to the total WNBA revenue is .04%. Cooper Flagg's 1-year salary compared to the total NBA revenue is .1%. So comparatively speaking, Clark is making 40% of what Flagg is making. So from that lens, it appears Clark is underpaid. However, again, the league DOESN'T MAKE MONEY. I really have no idea how you can complain when you're part of an organization that is essentially still a charity case, and has been for it's entire 28 year history. How many years does the league need to be profitable to even get the NBA back to even? But, I guarantee you, the second they are net positive you will never hear the end of it, with players demanding more money, ignoring the previous decades of losses.

At the end of the day, all I see is a bunch of losers and no winners. The WNBA commish is at the very least tone deaf, and much likely worse. Reeve looked like a buffoon through the whole thing, and I was so perplexed watching it live why she was so upset other than "try to make it look like it's not my fault we sucked". And the players constantly complaining about "equality" and pay, completely ignoring the reality of revenue.
 

Reeve has had a grudge since last year's open stealing of the Championship. That came out in her actions on the court. She deserves her suspension and fine.

The commissioner is a complete joke and needs to resign. Coming out last season in a lady liberty dress showed the world that she was treating the WNBA as a WWE scripted entertainment and not legitimate basketball. Her bias was obvious. The league cannot grow or thrive with her as commissioner.
 

forever a gopher said:
As far as the pay goes, the WNBA has literally never been net revenue positive. The NBA has been propping up the league from the get-go, with it subsidizing the WNBA's $50MM revenue shortfall in 2024. But you want more pay? From what revenue? They're already losing money.

Caitlyn Clark's 1-year salary compared to the total WNBA revenue is .04%. Cooper Flagg's 1-year salary compared to the total NBA revenue is .1%. So comparatively speaking, Clark is making 40% of what Flagg is making. So from that lens, it appears Clark is underpaid. However, again, the league DOESN'T MAKE MONEY. I really have no idea how you can complain when you're part of an organization that is essentially still a charity case, and has been for it's entire 28 year history. How many years does the league need to be profitable to even get the NBA back to even? But, I guarantee you, the second they are net positive you will never hear the end of it, with players demanding more money, ignoring the previous decades of losses.
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This is the revenue that WNBA players want a piece of the action on:


While the WNBA has not been profitable past tense, that is not necessarily true going true going forward. In fact I think it will be very hard for them to lose money in the future.

Additionally the values of the franchises themselves has been growing exponentially along with more expansion teams in the future.


forever a gopher said:
And the players constantly complaining about "equality" and pay, completely ignoring the reality of revenue.
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My assumption has been "equality" means WNBA players feeling entitled to the same percentage amount of gross revenue as the NBA. Hard to argue with that.
 
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