The WNBA Commissioner needs to send out a message to the players that they are all in it together if they want to make money.
The Commissioner of the Women’s National Basketball Association has been touting the growth of her league. The league is also planning to add franchises and already has placed new franchises in the San Francisco Bay Area and Toronto, which is the fifth largest market in North America but Cathy Englebart has a problem that could undermine the league’s growth. There is trouble lurking. Caitlin Clark is seemingly vehemently disliked for some reason. It appears WNBA players and coaches don’t like Caitlin Clark and that includes Clark’s Indiana Fever teammates. Clark has brought mainstream media, marketing partners and people with disposable income to take a look at the WNBA game.
Clark can make players money by her presence. In hockey, not one player had a problem with Bobby Hull leaving the National Hockey League and signing a million-dollar deal with the World Hockey Association’s Winnipeg Jets in 1972. Hull boosted salaries across the board with that signing. No one was upset with Rick Barry when he left the National Basketball Association’s San Francisco Warriors in late 1960s and went to the American Basketball Association. In 1966, Pete Gogolak left the American Football League’s Buffalo Bills franchise for the National Football League’s New York Giants franchise and that hiked football players salaries. Indiana Fever teammates stood by as Chicago Sky player Chennedy Carter ‘hip-checked’ Clark during a game. Sky teammate Angel Reese celebrated Carter’s cheap shot. What Englebert has to do is sit the league players down and explain the facts of life as in we can all get more money. You may not have to go overseas to find a team to pay you money to supplement your WNBA salary. Terri Carmichael Jackson, the Executive Director of the WNBA Players Association, needs to have the same conversation. It is in everybody’s best interest in the WNBA for the players to grow up.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
