The tweet is full of sourness and sarcasm.
“I can learn to be a mascot”.
Angel McCoughtry is one of the most famous faces in the WNBA.
This Tuesday, the player posted a message on her social networks as a warning about the wage disparities between men's and women's basketball.
The release of NBA mascot salaries was enough to make the Minnesota Lynx star, a five-time WNBA All Star, jump.
We learn that the mascot of the Denver Nuggets men's team, a certain "Rocky, the mountain lion", receives 625,000 dollars per year - against 60,000 on average in other clubs -.
In comparison, Diana Taurasi, one of the three highest earners in the women's league, is paid almost three times less (228,000).
I can learn to be a mascot ✋🏾 pic.twitter.com/8wZlQNbJqP
— McCoughtry (@angel_35) October 5, 2022
This difference has been widely relayed on social networks.
Angel McCoughtry, for example, shared a tweet from Caroline Fitzgerald, founder of the sports business agency Goals, in which she noted that "the pay gap between mascots and elite athletes tells you everything you need to know. on how the sports industry values women.
The average WNBA player salary stands at $102,751, while last season the average NBA player salary was around $8.5 million.
The gap is even more gaping when comparing the salaries of the headliners.
The top ten NBA players make more than $40 million, 200 times more than their female counterparts.
This debate comes up regularly on the table across the Atlantic as elsewhere, and in basketball as in many other sports, notably “soccer”.
Do we need equivalent salaries in the club - the situation is different in selection?
That's not really the question.
In 2021, the player Sue Bird summarized the claims made by sportswomen and the criticisms addressed to the ecosystem.
"We do not ask to be paid like NBA players, we point the finger at the gap to highlight the lack of investment and coverage," she said.