Liz Cambage tells us 5 ways the WNBA is failing its players

Liz Cambage is the type of superstar every growing sports league in the world needs. The 6’8 Dallas Wings star set a league record scoring 53 points in a game, and had her name dropped by Drake in a song on Travis Scott’s album, Astroworld. But that’s only a part of what makes her so important.

Not only is Cambage among the best basketball players on the planet, she’s also the most vocal — about everything. That includes getting ejected for telling a ref to “open her eyes” among other profanities, Instagraming videos of her dancing while eating hummus, impromptu Q&A sessions about the anxiety and depression that kept her away from the WNBA for four seasons, and everything in between.

Cambage is raw, relatable, and unafraid to speak her mind about the good, the bad and the real all the same. In a recent interview with SB Nation, she said she was willing to advocate for change, even though speaking out cost her sponsorships in her native Australia.

And in her mind, the WNBA needs a lot of change. So much change that she’s not even sure if she’ll return to the league after this season.

She isn’t alone. The WNBA’s stars have been more vocal ever about their desire for better pay and player conditions, and with good reason. The Players Association and the league have a Nov. 1 opt out date for their current Collective Bargaining Agreement that many on the player’s side believe to be unfair. The opt out would take effect after the 2019 season.

How might the WNBA be different if Cambage were in charge? Here’s the list:

Pay the players more

Cambage, her teammate Skylar Diggins-Smith, and the rest of the league’s stars aren’t expecting to receive the same salaries as their NBA colleagues. Still, they know there’s a massive difference in the percentage of revenue paid to players in the WNBA than in the NBA.

The WNBA’s wage gap has been the crux of the player’s public pleas for change in the next CBA. Currently, WNBA players are guaranteed just 20 percent of the league’s revenue, while the NBA players split about 50 percent.

The maximum salary in the WNBA was $113,000 in 2018, and the salary is scaled independently from revenue. Each year, the max rises by a mere $2,000, unlike the NBA, where the max salary rises with league revenue.

That’s why most of the league flocks to Europe, Asia, and Australia to make the bulk of their salaries. There, younger players can make three times or more of their WNBA salaries, while stars can make 10 or 15 times the pay. The athletes play nearly year-round without a break. Some even miss WNBA training camp if their teams abroad qualify for the postseason.

“We sign million dollar contracts in Asia and Russia and get treated like royalty,” Cambage said in a WNBA conference call in July alongside Diggins-Smith. “But when we’re here in America, we’re back of the plane, playing back-to-backs.”

The pay discrepancy is on the forefront of player’s minds.

“Considering we do everything but clean up the gym after and we don’t get paid, yeah it is frustrating seeing [NBA] bench players make 8-figure deals, and the last man on the bench making 7-figure deals when we work our asses off every single day,” Diggins-Smith said on the call.

Diggins-Smith referenced the fight the pioneers of the league made to get things off the ground 22 years ago. Players using their voices this season — like Cambage — are following in their footsteps.

“It comes with the territory for us to do our part just like the women before us did their part for us to even have a league,” Diggins-Smith said. “To sustain this league for our daughters and give them something proud to want to represent.”

Market the stars like actual stars

In Cambage’s mind, the problem goes deeper than salaries for top players like herself. They also aren’t promoted as stars the same way their male counterparts are.

“I don’t think our game is marketed the way it should be,” Cambage said on that July call. “I don’t think we get treated the way we should be. The WNBA is constantly called the best league in the world, yet we don’t get treated like the best athletes in the world.”

Cambage told me about a young fan who’d been bullied in school who reached out to her on Instagram. She made a connection with the boy, who in return showed up to the WNBA All-Star Game in Minnesota wearing her jersey.

Cambage isn’t around all year-long to meet America’s youth, though. Because she must sustain her career by playing abroad, she’ll only be in the U.S. for less than four months. That limits the opportunities to meet Wings fans and for the league to put her face out there.

She’s seen how successful female athletes can be if they’re financially able to stay home, which makes it all the more frustrating. Her teammate, Diggins-Smith, is endorsed by both Puma and Bodyarmor Superdrink, giving her the revenue needed to not have to play overseas. She’s used that platform to grow into one of the biggest basketball celebrities in the women’s game.

“[Fans] want to be able to see their favorite players in the offseason running camps like Skylar does,” Cambage told me. “That’s why she has such a big following. She stays and she makes connections.”

“The rest of us, we disappear for another eight months. We can’t be here in the offseason because we go to make our money somewhere else,” she added. “I should be turning on the TV seeing more marketing for these girls. More ads. But we don’t have time to commit because we aren’t here.”

Cambage said she has plans to bring Diggins-Smith to Australia for camps.

Market the teams like actual teams, not advertising billboards

“Look at this thing here,” Cambage told me as she picked up a teammate’s jersey. She pointed to the front of the uniform, which is dotted with sponsor’s labels.

“Who wants to buy this with a massive American Fidelity sign?” she asked rhetorically. “Where does it even say Dallas Wings on it? How are you meant to market this? Who wants to buy this?”

The jersey she pointed to is the only one that’s customizable on her team’s website for fans to purchase. It looks like this:

“And if you want people to buy this, they’re wearing it for people’s names on the back. Nobody wants to rep this,” Cambage said.

“It’s little things like that. Having the right symbols on the jersey, people want to rep their city. They want to see Dallas Wings. They want their favorite players’ names on the back.”

Better travel conditions

The hottest CBA-related topic in the WNBA is the issue of travel. The Las Vegas Aces forfeited a late-season game against the Washington Mystics after suffering through 25 hours of plane delays and cancellations due to mechanical issues. They landed in D.C. around 3 p.m. ET for an 8 p.m. ET tipoff, opting to no-show and take the loss.

Though the Aces’ issue was extreme, it’s common for WNBA teams to go through travel issues, as teams are only permitted to fly commercially.

In the NBA’s CBA, there’s language that supports the players should travel issues occur, and they fly chartered planes:

No Team shall be required to play a scheduled game on the same day that such Team has traveled across two (2) time zones, except in unusual circumstances and unless the Players Association consents thereto, which consent shall not be unreasonably withheld.

“I felt for those girls,” Cambage told SB Nation. “I’ve been snowed in at an airport overnight and we were just trying to get back to our home city. This is when I was playing in China. But for them to have flights cancelled, nowhere to stay, that drains you. It drains you and I completely support them. There’s no way they should’ve touched the court after 24 hours like that.”

Cambage isn’t advocating for chartered planes, but there are still ways to improve travel conditions more modestly. She explained the differences between her flights in the Women’s Chinese Basketball Association from her trips in the WNBA. Though she still flies commercially in China, the team makes sure everyone has exit rows booked. If the flight is more than three hours long, the team flies first class.

In the WNBA, Cambage said the team tries to book exit row seats, but they aren’t available for everyone. That sometimes forces her to squeeze her 6’8 frame into a coach seat.

Space out the schedule

Because the WNBA plays during the summer months, it must condense its schedule every two years to account for the Olympics or the FIBA World Cup.

This season, with the World Cup set to begin on Sept. 22, the WNBA was forced to pack the same 34 games it always plays into two fewer weeks. For Cambage’s Dallas Wings team, that’s meant playing 34 games in 93 days. The toughest stretch: a four-game in seven-night cross-country grind from New York on a Sunday, home in Texas on Tuesday, at Los Angeles Thursday, and at Seattle on Saturday.

“You see how many ACL injuries have happened this season?” Cambage asked me. “That comes from fatigue. Injuries come from fatigue, especially injuries like that, and it’s proven.”

So far, four players have lost their season to knee injuries, including Atlanta Dream All-Star Angel McCoughtry.

“This season is crazy, I think it’s like 34 games in 90 days,” Cambage said. “This is our third back-to-back. If you want the best out of us, you can’t treat us like that. If you want this game to be at the top level, you have to treat your players like they’re top level.”

This is also a problem in the NBA, though the league has made strides in reducing its back-to-back schedule. Teams will average a record-low 13.3 each this season, and the grueling four-game-in-five-night stretches have been completely eliminated.

This year, the WNBA is seeing its fourth fewest back-to-backs ever at two per team. For a point of comparison, Cambage said her teams in China don’t play back-to-backs at all.

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Whether Liz Cambage stays in the WNBA or takes another hiatus, she’s already made a major impact on the league. She’s one of the league’s best players and has used that platform to voice for the league’s growth.

The WNBA’s only been around for 22 seasons, which is why it’s seeing growing pains. Cambage and her colleagues are doing their part by expressing what needs to improve.