Draymond Green Tweets on Pay Gap Between Men's, Women's Basketball Players

After watching Saturday's Sweet 16 showdown between Paige Bueckers' UConn Huskies and Caitlin Clark's Iowa Hawkeyes in the 2021 NCAA women's tournament, Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green talked about the pay disparities between the men's and women's game in a string of tweets.

"I've been seeing a lot of talk about the pay gap between women and men. Especially in sports. It's not even close," Green wrote. "But let's stop allowing y'all complaints to fall on deaf ears due to numbers. As long as y'all make the argument about pay, while the revenue stays the same they will continue to point at the revenue not being high enough to cover bigger salaries. While that is true in damn near every business, how do we take that card out of their pockets? That's the key to changing the pay.

"There's no argument for lack of revenue unless you make those that say they stand for women actually stand up. The NBA wasn't always the global game that it is today. It wasn't always driving as much revenue as it does today. But there were people behind it, building the platform, and more importantly telling INDIVIDUAL stories and building up the interest in the players. That's how the game took off. Who's building up y'all platform? Who's telling the individual stories of how great y'all are? Building the interest and transforming women's basketball into a global game?"

He also called for more stories to be told about women's basketball so fans can have a better connection with the game and players:

Green also wrote there needs to be more of a payoff for elite women's college basketball to leave school early and play at the highest levels of the sport.

"Break the mold and change the game!" he wrote. "Most importantly, change the BUSINESS. Call on [companies that say they support women's empowerment for financial] support, after all they are using y'all to push WOMEN EMPOWERMENT, but not helping y'all. They're simply saving face."

According to Jonathan Vanian of Fortune, the average salary for a WNBA player for the 2019-20 season was $75,000. Basketball Reference (h/t Vanian) put the average salary for an NBA player in that season around $7.7 million.

Megan Rapinoe, who is one of the most prominent athletes in all of sports as a two-time World Cup champion and has fought for change throughout her career, responded to Green (warning: NSFW language):

While there was some appreciation for the Warriors star's efforts to shine a light on existing inequalities, others called out the tweets as an instance of "mansplaining" and placing the blame for sexism on those who experience it while invisibilizing the storytelling work that many—and especially women—do in this realm.

Outlets such as HighlightHER (a B/R portfolio) and the recently launched Togethxr have made women in sports more visible to audiences. ESPN's Maria Taylor shared a recent example of a prominent story "telling the individual stories of how great y'all are," as Green put it in his tweets:

Some WNBA players saw the comments as problematic:

Green's comments come after the NCAA faced extensive criticism for differences in amenities for men's players in the Big Dance in Indianapolis and women's players in the Big Dance in San Antonio.

Players took to social media to raise their concerns:

ESPN's Heather Dinich reported NCAA president Mark Emmert acknowledged "a number of balls were dropped" in the way the organization handled the women's and men's tournaments. NCAA vice president for basketball Dan Gavitt also apologized.