Dave Portnoy is fed up with those who believe WNBA players don’t deserve a higher payday.
In the wake of players wearing warmup shirts that said “Pay Us What You Owe Us” at Saturday’s All-Star Game, the Barstool Sports founder and owner made his stance clear with a lengthy post and subsequent video on X on Sunday.
“I don’t know how anybody in the world with a brain, and maybe my brain is just bigger than most, can rationally say women don’t deserve more money at this point,” Portnoy said in the video.
Portnoy went on to reference how Caitlin Clark’s rookie salary, $76,000, is less than what Barstool personalities Nicky Smokes and Ben Mintz make per year, calling the disparity “insane.”
As of the 2024 season, the WNBA’s average salary was $147,745, according to DirecTV.
Portnoy noted how some WNBA critics have referenced reports of the league losing tens of millions of dollars each year, but said the finances of the league are “a mess, tied in with the NBA and purposely murky.”
In October 2024, The Post reported the WNBA would be losing $40 million in the 2025 season.
But, as Portnoy put it, the league is “exploding.”
“Franchise values are exploding. Ticket sales, merch, tv rights all exploding. The players have an opt out in their CBA. Of course they took it. It’s all about leverage in re-negotiations and for the 1st time in history of [the] league players have power,” Portnoy wrote.
The league agreed to an 11-year, $2.2 billion TV rights deal with Disney, Amazon Prime Video and NBCUniversal last summer, and TV ratings (up 23%), ticket sales (up 26%) and attendance (13%) are all surging halfway through the season, according to NPR.
“The players make virtually nothing while the entire league explodes,” Portnoy added. “Of course they deserve more money.”
Portnoy, who is one of Caitlin Clark’s most vocal superfans, also refuted the notion that the league’s recent success is unsustainable because it over-relies on Clark’s star power.
“This league is so white hot right now, and I know everyone’s going to say, ‘Well, it’s only Caitlin Clark, it’s a one-person league,’” Portnoy said. “Caitlin Clark was 100% the match that lit the fuse…but, Caitlin’s not going anywhere. She’s year two of a 15-year career.”
He added that other young stars like Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers and the soon-to-be pro JuJu Watkins mark a bright future for the league, too.
Portnoy concluded by writing that if he could purchase a Boston-based WNBA franchise for $250 million, he “would do it without blinking.”
“That’s all you got to know about the WNBA finances,” he added.
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