I am not a sports person. Generally speaking I have no idea what any team is doing anywhere at any time. Caitlin Clark makes it onto my radar because she is an emblem of change, the maturation of women’s sports and the ability of women to be well paid sports stars coming to fruition. I believe it is a good thing, a very important milestone in human history.
Currently we have an insult hurled casually at this symbol of women’s advancement. The phrase in question is “A White Bitch.” Pat McAfee went there. He has since sort of, kind of, maybe apologized. I am very unimpressed. In the course of being on television and being a commentator, there is always the possibility of saying the wrong thing. It’s a fast medium that revels in word play. So, I expect the foolish and irresponsible to be said from time to time with the provision in mind that ladies and gentlemen can err but must take responsibility for their mistakes and learn from them.
McAfee should sincerely apologize. He was wrong.
I have to say that we are in new territory here. I was a very young man when people like Muhammed Ali shot across the sky of sports and changed everything. There was a massive amount of controversy in that era and he was just one of many trailblazers in sports. This is a similar situation. Boundaries are being adjusted and the world is changing before our eyes. For many people, this is difficult.
It is a good thing but the ancient customs of civility and kindness must hold. We are not savages. We cannot and must not say whatever we feel for we are not children. We should say what is appropriate and kind with the intent of bettering and adding to what is known. That is true commentary.
Sports commentary should add to our understanding, not pretend to be shock jocks on talk radio. This is multi-billion dollar industry with many, many implications for our larger culture and in particular how we raise and nurture children. “A White Bitch” is not a phrase we should casually throw out for its momentary shock value. We have a better culture than that.
If you’re like me, you are surprised at the disparity between the pay for the first round draft pick in the WNBA as opposed to the NBA. Those amounts are 76,535 dollars (Caitlin Clark) and 10,500,000 (Victor Wembanyama).
I am well aware that the NBA makes a lot more money than the WNBA but the disparity is pretty incredible. It is most fortunate that Clark can still get extra money from endorsements but it does bring to mind how we value women as opposed to men.
Women’s sport have been in a long, long climb toward substantive budgets and attention. Women get less money at a every step in the ladder. Now, I am rather old and I can remember when women’s college sports had virtually no measurable budget at all. So, there has been a lot of progress but I absolutely sympathize with those that find the current numbers appalling.
One person upset by the amount paid the new WNBA draft pick was the President of the United States. Here are two quotes and the links to the articles.
On Tuesday, Biden wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that “women in sports continue to push new boundaries and inspire us all.” “But right now we’re seeing that even if you’re the best, women are not paid their fair share,” he wrote. “It’s time that we give our daughters the same opportunities as our sons and ensure women are paid what they deserve.”
Although there is a great deal of controversy over the salary. Caitlin Clark was rightfully full of pride and jubilant on her drafting. Here is what she said and a link to the quote.
“I think the biggest thing is I’m just very lucky to be in this moment and all these opportunities and these things, they’re once in a lifetime,” she says, reflecting on a whirlwind couple of months. “When things might get tiring or you have to do stuff, I think the biggest thing is look at it just as an opportunity. This isn’t something everybody gets to do. It’s once in a lifetime, and just trying to soak in every single experience because I know how quick of a turnaround it is, and I have a lot of people helping me.”
Despite her record-breaking performance in the NCAA and the energy that she’s generated for the sport, Clark’s base salary will be $76,535 as a rookie. In the NBA, meanwhile, the first draft pick is expected to make roughly $10.5 million in base salary their first year.
In 2022, the NCAA reporting on expenditures in College Sports showed the stark difference in investment between males and females.
The report, released Thursday and entitled “The State of Women in College Sports,” found 47.1% of participation opportunities were for women across Division I in 2020 compared to 26.4% in 1982. Yet, amid that growth, men’s programs received more than double that of women’s programs in allocated resources in 2020 – and that gap was even more pronounced when looking at home of the most profitable revenue-generating sports: the Football Bowl Subdivision, the top tier within Division I that features the Alabamas, Ohio States and Southern Californias of the sports world.
So, here we have the stark disparity between female and male sports. You can see it in Caitlin Clark’s salary and in overall investment between the two in colleges and universities across the United States.
What do we do? I’m sure there are those who would claim we’re making progress and isn’t that enough? Much, probably, almost all of the money invested in college sports is public money or income derived from public money. And this suggests that simple fairness demand equal investment in both sexes.
Further, we have to not just be astonished at the salary disparity but commit ourselves to action, commit ourselves to change. Accepting the status quo is not the path to justice, fairness and the full development of human potential.
Think of the future that could be if we will it and invest our money in a new and better world.
True fans possess an enormous capacity to live through their football heroes, but they retain an even greater capacity to do so without empathy. Just last week, Bears quarterback Jay Culter was all but put in stocks for leaving a game due to a torn MCL. Fans burned his jersey as though Cutler “quit” out of feminine frailty, as though this professional QB had concocted some elaborate, cowardly, fan-jobbing conspiracy. The public violently, irrationally demands that a player play, even with knee ligaments dangling. No wonder so many of these athletes gobble painkillers in a manner that would trump a toilet-bound Elvis.
I’ve spent my life wondering what people saw in football. NFL football, I get that. That’s entertainment. What I don’t get is college or high school football. There’s this strange story line that football builds character and teamwork. I imagine there is some development there – “playing fields of Eton” and the other charming and nonsensical tales of our culture. But for almost all colleges, football loses money all the time every year. In high school it is at best a distraction from the real purpose of school and worse, a money drain diverting resources from other programs.
But the author here is right. It is the pain. It is the harm the sport does to the players. And the fans. There is some strangeness there. Many years ago I was in high school and the NFL players went on strike. My fellow students deprived of their television pacifier were outraged. My father subscribed to Sports Illustrated and I read about the strike. I discovered that the average life span of an NFL player was 58 years and the injury rate was 100%. That’s a lot to give up so that people can be entertained.
The author continues –
At a certain point, we are — in part — defined by this tendency. That America endorses the NFL’s pain party starts to say something about the country. Such as: American culture is replete with couch-jockeys who feel more masculine for having watched other people destroy themseves. Or: American culture is fine with perpetuating a system of destruction, so long as a few, mostly poor people are involved. In many ways, our attitudes towards fetishized athletes mirror our attitudes towards those glorious troops whom we only support with platitudes. This is not good.
I’ve been waiting for somebody, anybody to say something like this for days.
Ethics Bob is a treasure. He didn’t just say it. He said it with power and toughness. Read this paragraph –
What’s wrong with this picture: a young man, struggling to pay off college loans and support himself with a minimal-paying job, gives a gift—estimated to be worth $300,000 on the open market—to a baseball superstar whose salary for 2011 is $14,729,365?
While others may say Lopez’s heart is big, I think it stupid. But is there a pig in the story? How about Jeter, the gazillionaire who accepts a $300,000 gift from a fan who could only afford one of the cheap seats to see his Yankees play?
That’s a clear ethical point of view. No shenanigans, just what it looks like. I’m a fan of Ethics Bob and I recommend you all visit his site.
James Pilant
The Pig, if I am not mistaken, Supplies us sausage, ham, and Bacon. Let others say his heart is big, I think it stupid of the Pig. This old Ogden Nash poem keeps rattling around my brain when I think about Christian Lopez, a 23-year-old, the Verizon Wireless salesman. Lopez caught New York Yankee Derek Jeter’s 3000th hit, and big-heartedly gave the ball to Jeter. In return Lopez got from the Yankees four luxury suite tickets for the rest of the s … Read More
I’m not that big a sports fan. Okay, that’s not true, I’m not a sports fan at all, but this was just irresistible.
The picture alone is just priceless.
James Pilant
It’s hard to root root root for the home team when it’s led by bums. Like Andrew Bynum of the Los Angeles Lakers. Back in May, in the closing minutes of the playoff game in which the Dallas Mavericks eliminated the Lakers, 122-86, Bynum committed one of the ugliest fouls in the history of the NBA. The giant Bynum, seven feet tall and listed at 285 pounds, flattened the smallest player on the floor, J.J.Barea, six feet and 175 pounds, as he was go … Read More
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