Why Isn't Brittney Griner the Biggest Sports Story in the World? | Hacker News Reader

Why Isn't Brittney Griner the Biggest Sports Story in the World?

nymag.com

19 pointsxrd20 comments

> Making equivalences between sports only takes you so far here, but seriously: Imagine if Tom Brady were being held by Russian officials right now.

But Griner isn't Tom Brady.

The theory that Griner isn't more nationally prominent because she's a woman (or her race or sexual orientation) is odd, considering that there are sports such as figure skating or gymnastics where the women are far more famous than the men. If Simon Biles were being held in Russia it would almost certainly have been a much bigger news story than if it was some male gymnast. Conversely, if Lionel Messi was being held in Russia, that probably wouldn't register for most Americans. (I had to look up “famous soccer star” in Google.)

Sports is culture-specific, highly local, and highly influenced by network effects. I follow college football because I went to an ACC school for college. College football season is a time for me to reconnect with my college buddies.[1] By contrast, I have no cultural or geographic connection to any WNBA teams. None of my friends follow any WNBA teams either. I knew who Brittney Griner was for idiosyncratic reasons--my wife likes WNBA (and minor league baseball) games because she can get floor seats for a song at major venues--but otherwise I never would have heard of her.

[1] Even among people who watch football, there is far less awareness of college football among folks in the northeast compared to folks in the southeast.

Maybe because it's not a "sports" story? Every now and again I hear people getting caught with illicit substances in certain countries. Don't do it. You want to get high in russia... maybe try vodka?

You've heard about this a lot because it is a common thing for the police in many parts of the world to plant drugs on foreigners so they can arrest them.

If that were true then the correct course of action would be to stop doing sports in despotic countries

It's awful that she's in prison in Russia, and I hope that she finds her way out.

But there is something particularly tone deaf about talking about how someone was coerced into playing overseas to make millions because they were only pad $221,000 a year.

Always worth keeping in mind that professional athletes have a limited span of time until they will no longer be employable in their field, so they are under a different pressure to maximize their earnings than e.g. software engineers.

>Griner didn’t choose to go play in Russia. The league left her no choice.

Ya that quote got me. Why is it so in vogue to give people no agency, like everyone is a child? Would I go to Russia for 5x the money I make now? It certainly would be temping and I'm not sure if I would or not, but I'm actively making a choice as a grown-ass man. I'm fully capable of calculating the risk and reward and determining what's right for me, because I'm a grown-ass man and not a child.

A long WNBA career is ten years, and Griner is one of the best players in the league. The pay is a lot worse than you make it out. Similar-rank men in the NBA make millions or tens of millions of dollars.

The WNBA lost 10 million last year even after the NBA gave the league 12.5 million. The NBA made 8 billion last year. The average attendance at a WNBA game is 2500. Attendance at an NBA game is generally limited to how many seats the arena has. ESPN bumped one night of the WNBA finals to ESPN2 to air an NBA preseason game because the ratings would be higher. The WNBA will play 36 regular season games this year, the highest it's ever been. The NBA plays 82 regular season games. No WNBA team has ever turned a profit in the leagues history.

I understand that.

"The league’s low salaries and minimal efforts towards player support have for years forced even its biggest stars to treat their time in the WNBA as a part-time job. The maximum WNBA salary in 2022 was just over $228,000, and players can make far more than that playing in leagues overseas." This could have been worded far better, I broke out laughing. I hope the the average is far, far lower than that if I'm supposed to have sympathy or something here.

Let's put this in perspective. All the WNBA teams are in major cities, right? Earning $228k a year is not going to get you even a decent house in LA or SF or NY. And, you have to travel, so you will need a partner who has limited career options if you have kids, etc. I know life isn't fair, and the market is to some extent creating the salary levels, but a world class athlete deserves more. It perhaps says more about what we value as a society, and that's a fair assessment, but it seems like you are saying the $228k a year is a lot of money, and in context, it is not at all.

Earning $228k/year will definitely get you a decent house in the LA area. Especially if you also have a spouse. With $228k/year, you can afford Pasadena, Santa Monica, Culver City, Malibu, San Marino, Rancho Cucamonga, Chino Hills, La Canada Flintridge, Thousand Oaks, Calabasas, Woodland Hills, and other nice areas with good houses and schools.

$228k won't get you a house in a bougie area like Bel Air, Palos Verdes, or the Hollywood Hills, but at that point you're talking about mansions, not houses.

I just did a search on Zillow for Pasadena. Most houses were at least $1M, and their mortgage calculator says at current interest rates that is $6000/mo. After taxes, that $228k gets you about $12k a month. If you have a family, that's $1k a month for food, and many more expenses. Car payment? And, your career is only ten years.

There is a not a lot of room left over with $228k, and remember, that is the HIGHEST paid person on the team.

I read countless statements here on HN about people excited about living away from big cities and maximizing their tech incomes. This is not the case here.

I'm not saying it should be fair, but we should at least pay attention to it and be honest about what this means for exceptional women.

Your math doesn't make any sense. You have $6k a month after taxes and mortgage, not including spouse's income, and that's somehow not enough money? Food for a family leaves $5k/month. What sort of fancy expenses take up $5k each month?

And you claim that a career only lasts 10 years? Is that a weird tech thing? Most white-collar jobs last several decades.

For comparison, I know a number of people who make less than $228k/year, own houses that are around $1 million in and around Pasadena, Culver City, and Santa Monica, and have no problems making mortgage payments, paying for food, saving for retirement, and going on multiple vacations each year.

If you can't live on $5k/month after mandatory expenses, the problem is your spending...

We are talking about professional women's basketball players. Who might be traded, and then need to relocate with their spouse. It is a lot more complicated than you make it out.

Ten years is probably a very long WNBA career, on average. Then, add kids to that, and it is probably even shorter, and MUCH more complicated. I'm willing to bet you don't have kids and understand the expenses that come with them.

I'm not saying you can't live on the amount the highest paid player on a WNBA team makes, but this is the pinnacle, and it isn't the same as male players.

Sure, there are ways to constrain spending, but a WNBA player has far fewer choices than other families out there.

When Silicon Valley CEOs were caught in an illegal cartel like attempt to suppress wages did you have sympathy for your fellow programmers?

Why are wage caps in sports even allowed, but are apparently illegal in every other profession.

The WNBA players union negotiates a contract with the league that includes provisions like these. In general wage caps are included because the union wants to "spread out" money away from the top stars to raise the salaries of average players.

These sorts of arrangements are common in many industries with a union represented workforce.

It's worth noting that the WNBA Union contract includes a provision for 50% of revenues to go to player salaries. This is the same standard in the men's league. WNBA salaries being substantially lower than NBA salaries are a function of league revenue being far lower.

>"players can make far more than that playing in leagues overseas"

THEN GO PLAY OVERSEAS!!!! Half of the people on HackerNews are immigrants to one country or another.

Why should we feel sympathy for this woman? People go overseas for better opportunities all the time. Why should I feel sympathy for her brining illegal drugs into Russia? She's can't follow the law there, so now America has to come break her out?

Reasons:

1) She was detained upon entry to Russia at the main airport in Moscow (Sheremetyevo International Airport) when they searched her bags and found marijuana. (vape cartridges) If she was detained at a backwater airport or hotel room, then the suspicion of the drugs being planted in her bag might hold more weight, but instead it appears she was legitimately caught red-handed transporting drugs.

2) She was very vocal in 2020 about not playing the national anthem at WNBA games. Now that she's been imprisoned in a foreign country she wants patriotism and American values to fight for her release?

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