In Britney Griner’s first press conference since returning back to the U.S from her nearly 10-month Russian detainment, the WNBA player implied the ordeal wouldn’t have happened if she was paid fairly for her work.
“I’m never going overseas to play again unless I’m representing my country at the Olympics,” she said. “If I make the team, that would be the only time I would leave U.S. soil.”
Griner shared that the only reason went over there in the first place was to play the WNBA offseason so she could earn more money. “The whole reason a lot of us go over is the pay gap. A lot of us go over there to make an income to support our families, to support ourselves.”
As previously reported by ESSENCE, WNBA have notoriously been overplayed and underpaid. The average salary for a player in the WNBA for the 2022 season was $102,751, among 151 athletes. The average salary for a player for the 2023 season, as of April 2, is $147,745, according to Queen Ballers Club.
As ESSENCE previously pointed out, the option to play overseas grants the majority of these players larger salaries that rival the WNBA’s 5-month salary cap of just over $110,000. A major difference from the NBA where the cap is nearly $110 million and the base salary of over $580,000.
In 2022, Griner was charged for carrying vape cartridges with a small (arguably) amount of cannabis oil in her luggage and was sentenced to nine years in prison before the U.S. government successfully negotiated release via a prisoner swap.
Despite saying she’d never go to overseas again outside of very specific circumstances, Griner refused to “knock any player that wants to go overseas and make a little bit extra money,” because she understands the wealth gap women players face as opposed to their male counterparts in the NBA. The average NBA player made a staggering 44 times more than WNBA players per an NPR report: $5.4 million, compared to $120,600, respectively.
Working women in the U.S. earned on average only 82% of what men made. Black women make 39% less than their male peers.
“I’m hoping that our league continues to grow,” she said. “I hope a lot of these companies start to invest in our craft.”