When Moscow airport screening officials discovered vape cartridges filled with cannabis oil in Brittney Griner’s luggage in February, they detained her. Now the 6-foot-9-inch WNBA player is looking at 10 years in a Russian prison for “large-scale transportation of drugs.” Not entirely her fault though, because Insider sports blog attributes her presence in Russia to a so-called gender pay gap in the United States.
Griner was playing for the Phoenix Mercury, the U.S. team, while in Russia, where he played basketball for the UMMC Ekaterinburg.
Meredith Cash, the Insider writer covering the story, is quick to excuse Griner’s drug indiscretions. This “horrifying situation has shaken the American sports landscape to its core, but ironically, the circumstances that led to Griner’s arrest could have been avoided entirely had the American market placed a higher value on her talent. This legendary performer was only visiting Russia to make a living.:
Griner competes overseas, just like other female basketball players. Since 2014, she’s suited up for Russian powerhouse UMMC Ekaterinburg alongside a rotating group of fellow WNBA superstars.”
With the league’s maximum salary at $227,900, Cash claims that Griner and other players can earn more playing abroad than they could in the WNBA. That’s not exactly chump change, but it certainly deflates the merits of the Insider sob story. In fact, Griner’s WNBA pay is nearly five times the average U.S. salary. Ekaterina also pays Griner $1 million, bringing her total income to nearly 25 times that of the U.S. average salary.
Long story short, Griner is loaded, she doesn’t need two jobs and Cash’s story is a joke. Griner, one of eleven players, has been a champion in the WNBA NCAA, Olympics and EuroLeague. For her outstanding resume, Griner receives a tremendous salary.
The Insider story, however, is an assortment of rationalizations to defend an American citizen who tried to sneak drugs through airport security.
Cash says Griner’s inability to participate in two seasons of basketball each year has made her physically weaker. Griner’s million-dollar basketball career is far from ideal and she doesn’t get enough rest. The wear and tear of her roundball career leads to nagging injuries that can shorten a player’s career (but not her savings account). It’s Griner’s choice, not a necessity, to play two seasons.
Adding to her beef, Cash suggests the Russian war on Ukraine might just make Griner’s situation more perilous. The basketball star could be used as a pawn “in a fiery feud between two global superpowers.” Cash got this idea from the New York Times.
The New York Times reports that Russia may use Griner to “create leverage for potential prisoner exchanges with the American government, or reductions in the sanctions related to this.” [Ukraine] invasion.” Jonathan Abrams of The Times writes, “Russia has been detaining American citizens and sentencing them on what United States officials frequently claim are trumpedup charges.” That doesn’t even remotely apply here, what with Griner’s drug-laden luggage.
Cash also applies the current geopolitical feud to the unfortunate pay disparity victimizing the poor, hapless Griner, when the WNBA giantess can only be marginalized when compared to males earning mega-millions in the NBA.
“Had she made even a fraction of what her NBA counterparts do while playing domestically, Griner could have stayed in the United States for the offseason without fear that she wouldn’t have enough money for retirement,” Cash whined. “She could have rested her 6-foot-9 frame ahead of this summer’s WNBA season, as her reloaded Mercury squad sets its sights on a second straight WNBA Finals appearance, and she could have spent time back home with friends and loved ones.”
Thus, Griner could have avoided jail time in a “hostile foreign power” if only she was on the same pay scale as LeBron Jame$. That’s never going to happen because the WNBA is nowhere close to the marketability and the revenue of a major male sports league.
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