Brittney Griner is back in the United States after an arduous 10-month saga in Russia. Yet, nearly half of her WNBA peers are competing abroad this winter to supplement their incomes.
Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner sits during the first half of Game 2 of basketball's WNBA Finals against the Chicago Sky, Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2021, in Phoenix. Russia has freed WNBA star Brittney Griner in a dramatic high-level prisoner exchange, with the U.S. releasing notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
Griner, an All-Star with the Phoenix Mercury and a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was detained following her arrest at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport in February on drug possession charges while returning to Russia to play for her overseas team. She was convicted and sentenced to nine years in prison in Russia before the U.S. and Russia made a high-level prisoner exchange Thursday that allowed her to return home.Griner has not spoken publicly nor announced her career plans since she was freed.
But there’s no denying that the disparity in pay between professional men’s basketball players and professional women’s basketball players — Griner included — is still vast. The top salaries for WNBA players are much less than the minimum salary of about $953,000 for NBA players for various reasons, primarily the difference in profit margins and media rights.
So, the WNBA players look outside of the U.S., and Turkey has become the main destination for this winter with nearly two dozen of them playing there. Top players can make a few hundred thousand dollars playing in Turkey — significantly less than what they could earn in Russia.
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