no capital

how much does change really cost?

I wrote in a myth of progress that the first thing anyone with power in the WNBL or, more specifically, at Basketball Australia, uses as an argument whenever there is any comparison to the AFLW is money. 

The WNBL does not have the backing of an institution as huge as the AFL. It has nowhere near the same amount of financial support. That means the extent of opportunity at AFLW-level is an unfair measure. It cannot pay its players the same. It consequently is an unfortunate but expected reality that players are leaving. Basketball Australia is the hapless victim. There is nothing that can be done. They cannot compete.

It is convenient to indulge in the disparity of finances and rid yourself of responsibility. It is also lazy. It is also, deeply, inaccurate. 

Because it is not about the money. If it was about the money, most players would have already departed.

Which means Basketball Australia is not losing players because other leagues are paying more. There are athletes who love the WNBL enough to stay and play for much less than they have the potential to earn in other codes.

The issue is there is such little opportunity. The issue is there no plan for more opportunity. The issue is there does not seem to be any urgency to create a plan for more opportunity. 

The issue, ultimately, is the system. And the issue of the system is its complacency and contradictions and lack of transparency.

No Capital is an essay about mental health, pathway and the justification of money. It has been published, as of Saturday March 14th, 2024.

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no capital

Last week it was reported the Melbourne Boomers were looking to sell their WNBL licence to private investors in Geelong.

The transfer down the coast¹ would result in only a single Melbourne basketball team existing in the women’s professional league. 

It would be a devastating outcome: for the legacy of the Melbourne Boomers who, established in 1984 as the Bulleen Boomers, are not only the oldest WNBL club but the longest-running elite women’s sporting team across all sports in Australia; and for all the local athletes who already exist in an area simultaneously saturated with talent and depleted of opportunity.

There should be, at minimum, two teams in Melbourne. There should also be a team in Geelong, with its flourishing junior basketball participation rates, its strong community and its desire. There should be a team in Tasmania, or the Northern Territory, or another one in Queensland.

There should be, crucially, just more than eight. 

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I was in my first year within a WNBL program when the AFLW was founded.

It was 2016 and the event was heralded as something that would change the landscape for Australian female athletes; I was excited for everybody who had worked so hard, over decades, to make the league happen.

The minimum wage for the first AFLW season, pitched as $5,000, was then negotiated to be calculated pro-rata on an AFL male rookie wage of $29.32 an hour and increased to $8,500. It was supplemented with football boots and runners, a travel allowance when playing interstate, income protection insurance, out-of-pocket medical expenses for fifty-two weeks post-contract, and carers allowance for players travelling interstate who had a child under twelve months old.

Meanwhile, I was an eighteen-year-old WNBL Development Player being paid nothing. There was no minimum wage in the women’s national league. I was not, even slightly, tempted to leave basketball. 

I loved the sport; it was all I had ever played and my ambition to do it professionally, specifically in the WNBL, had been tied intricately to my identity since I was a child.

There were eight WNBL teams in 2016. There were zero AFLW teams, but they were coming.