Congressman Ro Khanna Gets SCHOOLED on the 'Basic Economics' of Caitlin Clark's WNBA Contract

California representative, Ro Khanna, received a much-needed education on basic economics from Twitter/X users.

It all started when Khanna complained about the size of the WNBA contract for rookie women's basketball phenom, Caitlin Clark.

The first pick in the NBA draft will make around $10 million in one year.

Caitlin Clark will make $76,535.

That is wrong. Pay women what they deserve.https://t.co/e4vWC7Acnd https://t.co/Y0qvdMqHCW
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) April 16, 2024

According to the congressman, it is 'wrong' for Clark to make significantly less money than men in the NBA make.

It didn't take long for people to shatter his argument.

How many WNBA games have you paid to go to? How many jerseys do you own? And how often have you watched their games…
— Ryan James Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) April 16, 2024

The first one that got Khanna's attention addressed the elephant in the room: The WNBA does not have a large fan base.

You stepped in that one, Ro. If the congressman was a huge WNBA fan, he could easily shut the question down by detailing his monetary support for the league.

Instead, it became painfully obvious that Khanna was running his mouth about something he knew nothing about.

One doesn't need to watch WNBA games to speak about pay fairness. Clark will bring new fans and likely juice WNBA ratings. She should be compensated for the expected ratings increase she will bring. NBA players like Bird, Jordan, Johnson did the same. Isn't this basic economics? https://t.co/aSli636qfU
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) April 16, 2024

You don't understand basic economics. https://t.co/pzRzBqRV9J
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) April 17, 2024

Indeed, he does not.

Khanna seems to be generally clueless about the economic realities facing the WNBA (or he's just virtue signaling).

First, there is a market for women's sports. That is, there is a group of people who are willing to pay to be entertained by women's sports and the WNBA in particular. The problem is that the market is not very big.

Do you know how many people watched the NBA finals last year? An average of nearly 12 million. WNBA average? 728K. The NBA earns $10B a year. The WNBA? $60M. Sports salaries are commensurate with ratings, earnings, and television contracts. https://t.co/1OQftRobkD
— Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) April 17, 2024

So there's just a huge market for men's sports? Probably not.

There is, however, a huge market for people who want to see the best athletes in the world compete against one another. That is, not many people care about seeing 'the men' play in the NBA as much as they care about seeing the best play.

WNBA players are certainly candidates to be among the top basketball players in the world, but none of them are. That's just reality. That leaves them depending on the market of people who want to see the best women play basketball - and it's not a big market, so they don't have nearly the money available to pay salaries.

Why not admit you have no idea what you're talking about?

The Indiana Fever, Clark's team, had a salary cap of 1.4M for all their players combined (12 active + 2 dead cap). They aren't going to make a rookie their highest paid player because she has a rookie contract. So how… https://t.co/re28yg45y7
— AG (@AGHamilton29) April 17, 2024

The WNBA is a women's league.

The NBA is not a men's league.

If a woman appeared on the basketball scene and was a freak of nature who could dunk on LeBron, shoot like Larry Bird, and had the style of Michael Jordan, she would play in the NBA among the best players in the world. Oh, and she'd earn an NBA salary that rivaled the best.

She'd also fly to away games on her rainbow-colored unicorn.

• NBA revenue is 166x that of the WNBA, whereas
• the average NBA salary is 93x that the average WNBA salary.

The problem is that there are more people who want to complain about WNBA salary disparities than there are who actually want to watch the WNBA.
— pragmatometer (@pragmatometer) April 16, 2024

'The problem is that there are more people who want to complain about WNBA salary disparities than there are who actually want to watch the WNBA.'

Nailed it.

One does in fact need to watch WNBA games to create the ratings necessary to justify higher salaries https://t.co/EjBnD2Sjkk
— Ian Miller (@ianmSC) April 17, 2024

Amazing, isn't it? The guy's asking if this isn't just basic economics while also claiming there doesn't have to be any demand for the WNBA product to justify paying them NBA salaries.

Dude…. This is quite literally the first time in 14 years you’ve ever even mentioned the WNBA on Twitter.

Meanwhile… as of 2022 you had been to 6 of the previous 8 NBA finals.

You should probably have a think on why that is… 🤔 pic.twitter.com/ZQdgqYr4LR
— Mel (@Villgecrazylady) April 16, 2024

You're the reason WNBA players are paid what they are, Representative Khanna, and that's just fine. You don't have to like the WNBA. Most people don't, or at least aren't interested.

If WNBA players were paid based on profits, each player would owe the league $61,000. pic.twitter.com/CG7uodRuWK
— Bailey (@realsnoopbailey) April 16, 2024

LOLOLOL!

Here for the ratio.
— Laurie (@WaltsPrincesss) April 16, 2024

And a ratio it was. Not anything like the ratio of WNBA salaries compared to NBA salaries, but a ratio nonetheless.

Look, there are definitely worse members of Congress than this guy, even worse Democrats, but there is probably none more dedicated to consistently beclowning himself. https://t.co/lUCuNXII5i
— Ray Goldfield Is Gettin' Bi (@RayGoldfield) April 17, 2024

This is how you get members of Congress chanting about raising the minimum wage to $20.

They lack a basic understanding of economics or maybe just refuse to recognize economic realities to try to win votes.