Posted on: May 18, 2024, 05:00h.
Last updated on: May 18, 2024, 06:40h.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) is gifting $100,000 to all 12 players on the Las Vegas Ace’s WNBA team. They will receive the money — which comes with no strings attached — on top of their regular salaries for this season and 2025.
“Today, we want to do something that is new, something I don’t think anybody’s ever done before,” LVCVA president and CEO Steve Hill said in a video his agency posted to Twitter Friday. “We want to recognize you individually. We want to put some money in your pockets.”
The news comes a week after the two-time defending champions were recognized by President Biden at the White House for their 2023 WNBA Finals win over the New York Liberty in October.
Mixed Reaction
Reaction to the news has been mixed. Some see the LVCVA’s gift as a means to even the pay gap between men’s and women’s sports.
“WOW!” tweeted Women’s Hoops Network. “Investing in women. Investing in community. Huge!!”
Others see it as a loophole around the WNBA’s salary cap, a way to keep a championship team intact in the face of attempts by rival teams to lure away its best players.
The 2024 salaries paid by the team — owned by billionaire Mark Davis, who also owns the Raiders — to its championship core were $200,000 to Kelsey Plum and A’Ja Wilson, $196,267 to Chelsea Gray, $169,950 to Jackie Young, and $110,000 to Alysha Clark, according to reporting by the New York Times.
Six of the Aces don’t even earn $100,000 salaries, the Times reported.
Foul Ball?
The LVCVA believes that its sponsorship does not violate the league’s salary cap of $1.43 million per team, because the tourism board did not orchestrate it with the club. Instead, it worked secretly with each player’s agent, structuring the deals similarly to the Name, Image, and Likeness deals cut between third parties and college athletes.
However, its sponsorship accomplishes the same goal as an illegal salary bump, which is likely to raise cries of foul from rival teams whose cities lack such cash-flush tourism boards. (According to an confirmed report from The Next, the WNBA has already launched an investigation into the deal.)
The news is also raising the hackles of Las Vegans who point out that the cash comes from the revenue LVCVA earns from hotel room taxes.
“This is absolutely ridiculous,” tweeted @TomD80106675. “Mark Davis, worth some $2.3 billion and more than capable of gifting each player $100,000 … but no, let’s use taxpayer money.”
