Diana T. Forgoes WNBA this summer
- Thread starter hoquat63
- Start date
I'll miss her terribly. I'm sure Annie Myers-Drysdale is just thrilled. What the heck, she still has a neophyte name Griner, they don't need the old lady.
This is a pretty interesting development. The WNBA underpays relative to other leagues, and particularly the Russian league, but I honestly don't have any idea what its financial situation really is. It reported that it expected half of the teams to make a profit in 2014, but that's sports accounting, so that could mean anything. The current ESPN contract pays only about $1 million per team per year, and attendance is somewhere around 7,500 per game (call it $2.5 million a year per team), so it's not like there's a huge amount of money to throw around.
Whatever the true financial situation is, you can be pretty sure that there isn't the money to pay substantially larger salaries - particularly in excess of a million to a star player so that they will play.
Apparently, offers from club teams to skip playing in the summer have been on the table in various years, however, most players don't take them (most probably are not in DT's league, either). The great fear is that more players will take the offer to protect their future earnings from the wear and tear of year-round ball.
Happily, she will be back for next season and the Olympics. Could Phoenix be looking for another lottery pick??
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