Politics Brittney Griner (1 Viewer)

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bigbailes said:
He's not wrong though ... not sure how many people realize but the $75M/year contract is coming very soon when the new CBA gets in place.
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For sure, it's coming. I'd rather the players get it than the owners keep most of it.

I'd prefer they spread the wealth a bit to our great women athletes as well, though.
 
Fairly-Hard said:
This pretty much says they should be paid more. Not exactly sure the breakdown is correct because star players will always command more $'s. It does point to a need for raises at the base level which helps everyone eventually.
I just wonder if the WNBA can ever be totally self sustainable? I personally simply cannot watch it for more than a few minutes unless there is someone playing i have some interest in. At this point the subject of this thread might be doing the WNBA a huge favor in the end. When she ultimately gets released she will no doubt bring with her interest. People like me have never watched her play. Before she was arrested i didn't even know her name. Certainly could not have put her name to a face.
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I think it could, if it were marketed well enough for long enough.

But even if it can't, I believe it behooves us to make sure our athletes are paid more here than anywhere else in the world.
 
Phatguysrule said:
Looks like your numbers are off by quite a bit...

WNBA AVERAGE
Attendance 6,721
Ticket price $47.00
https://projectsports.nl/en/what-is-the-average-attendance-at-a-wnba-game/
$315,887
12 players
26,323 per player per game.
36 games per season

$936,000 per season per player in ticket sales.

NWSL average
Attendance: 7,337
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Women's_Soccer_League_attendance
Price
Price: $20 (closest I could find, nothing official)
$146,740 sales per game
25 player roster

$5,869.60 per player
22 games

$117,392 per player per team.

So, judging by your logic, the average WNBA player should be making about 8x more than $54k per year (the actual average wage of NWSL players). Or roughly $432k per year per player.

I'd be alright with that. It's lower than I'd like, but that would be alright. But NWSL players should make that much as well, IMO.

They are the top women in the world. They deserve a salary large enough to retire on.
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Ticket sales don’t equal salaries. That is broken down into many other people to. My point is soccer players make less the number I found was 35k a year average/. Most of them are forced to live with host families or multiple sharing apartments. They draw more people to their games and stil make way less then wnba players. Until the wnba players can out draw NWSL they should not be getting more. Increase there draw and they would make more.
 
twobullz said:
Ticket sales don’t equal salaries. That is broken down into many other people to. My point is soccer players make less the number I found was 35k a year average/. Most of them are forced to live with host families or multiple sharing apartments. They draw more people to their games and stil make way less then wnba players. Until the wnba players can out draw NWSL they should not be getting more. Increase there draw and they would make more.
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WNBA games generate more revenue from ticket sales than NWSL. According to your logic, their pay should be dictated by how much money they can bring in, should it not?

Each WNBA player generates about 8x more revenue in ticket sales than the average NWSL. How can you argue that a player bringing in $936,000 per year in revenue from ticket sales should earn the same or less than a player bringing in $117,392?

This just sounds like you have some bias against WNBA players.
 
Phatguysrule said:
WNBA games generate more revenue from ticket sales than NWSL. According to your logic, their pay should be dictated by how much money they can bring in, should it not?

Each WNBA player generates about 8x more revenue in ticket sales than the average NWSL. How can you argue that a player bringing in $936,000 per year in revenue from ticket sales should earn the same or less than a player bringing in $117,392?

This just sounds like you have some bias against WNBA players.
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Your argument is every wnba play should have a salary of a minimum of 1 million when they don’t create that sort of revenue. I was just pointing out wnba is less popular then NWSL. How can you argue the wnba players be paid a higher income then they generate. Especially because that generated income has to cover all expenses not just player’s salaries.
 
bigbailes said:
He's not wrong though ... not sure how many people realize but the $75M/year contract is coming very soon when the new CBA gets in place.
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Yeah the average salary for player in the NBA jumped 5600 some percent in the last 44 years. It's not sustainable.
 
Shaboid said:
I'll be honest, I thought that dude was in an American prison already.
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He was. Probably should have left him in there tbh.

I think he snitched on a lot of his friends and got out that way.
 
This is such a sad situation at this point....I hope Ukraine defeats Russia soon and Russian leadership changes hands and comes to its senses. Seems that possibility is not far removed from reality which gives some hope.
 
Appeal denied. Not that anyone should be surprised.
 
I wonder what percentage of Putin’s soldiers fighting in Ukraine are stoned.
 
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She has been transferred to a penal colony. Russia playing hardball. I worried that if USA gave too much attention to her case that russia would up the ante. Not sure if USA has any high value prisoners to exchange. russia may be asking for some kind of concessions on Ukraine in exchange; I don't think that is going to happen. Not good news for Brittany.
 
Griner for Bout: WNBA star freed in US-Russia prisoner swap

WASHINGTON (AP) — Russia freed WNBA star Brittney Griner on Thursday in a dramatic high-level prisoner exchange, with the U.S. releasing notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, American and Russian officials said. The swap, at a time of heightened tensions over Ukraine, achieved a top goal for President Joe Biden, but carried a heavy price — and left behind an American jailed for nearly four years in Russia.

The deal, the second such exchange in eight months with Russia, procured the release of the most prominent American detained abroad. Griner is a two-time Olympic gold medalist whose monthslong imprisonment on drug charges brought unprecedented attention to the population of wrongful detainees.

Biden’s authorization to release a Russian felon once nicknamed “the Merchant of Death” underscored the escalating pressure that his administration faced to get Griner home, particularly after the recent resolution of her criminal case and her subsequent transfer to a penal colony.

The swap was confirmed by U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the negotiations who were not authorized to publicly discuss the deal before a White House announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity. Biden spoke with Griner on the phone Thursday while her wife, Cherelle, was in the Oval Office. The president was to address reporters later in the morning.

“Moments ago I spoke to Brittney Griner. She is safe. She is on a plane. She is on her way home,” Biden tweeted.

The Russian Foreign Ministry also confirmed the swap, saying in a statement carried by Russian news agencies that the exchange took place in Abu-Dhabi and that Bout has been flown home.

Russian and U.S. officials had conveyed cautious optimism in recent weeks after months of strained negotiations, with Biden saying in November that he was hopeful that Russia would engage in a deal now that the midterm elections were completed. A top Russian official said last week that a deal was possible before year’s end.

Even so, the fact that the deal was a one-for-one swap was a surprise given that U.S. officials had for months expressed their their determination to bring home both Griner and Paul Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive jailed in Russia since December 2018 on espionage charges that his family and the U.S. government has said are baseless.

In releasing Bout, the U.S. freed a a former Soviet Army lieutenant colonel whom the Justice Department once described as one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers. Bout, whose exploits inspired a Hollywood movie, was serving a 25-year sentence on charges that he conspired to sell tens of millions of dollars in weapons that U.S officials said were to be used against Americans.

The Biden administration was ultimately willing to exchange Bout if it meant Griner’s freedom. The detention of one of the greatest players in WNBA history contributed to a swirl of unprecedented public attention for an individual detainee case — not to mention intense pressure on the White House.

Griner’s arrest in February made her the most high-profile American jailed abroad. Her status as an openly gay Black woman, locked up in a country where authorities have been hostile to the LBGTQ community, infused racial, gender and social dynamics into her legal saga and made each development a matter of international importance.

Her case not only brought unprecedented publicity to the dozens of Americans wrongfully detained by foreign governments, but it also emerged as a major inflection point in U.S.-Russia diplomacy at a time of deteriorating relations prompted by Moscow’s war against Ukraine.

The exchange was carried out despite deteriorating relations between the powers. But the imprisonment of Americans produced a rare diplomatic opening, yielding the highest-level known contact between Washington and Moscow — a phone call between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov — in more than five months.

In an extraordinary move during otherwise secret negotiations, Blinken revealed publicly in July that the U.S. had made a “substantial proposal” to Russia for Griner and Whelan. Though he did not specify the terms, people familiar with it said the U.S. had offered Bout.

Such a public overture drew a chiding rebuke from the Russians, who said they preferred to resolve such cases in private, and carried the risk of weakening the U.S. government’s negotiating hand for this and future deals by making the administration appear too desperate. But the announcement was also meant to communicate to the public that Biden was doing what he could and to ensure pressure on the Russians.

Besides the efforts of U.S. officials, the release also followed months of backchannel negotiations involving Bill Richardson, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a frequent emissary in hostage talks, and his top deputy Mickey Bergman. The men had made multiple trips abroad in the last year to discuss swap scenarios with Russian contacts.

Griner was arrested at the Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport in February when customs officials said they found vape canisters with cannabis oil in her luggage. She pleaded guilty in July, though still faced trial because admitting guilt in Russia’s judicial system does not automatically end a case.

She acknowledged in court that she possessed the canisters, but said she had no criminal intent and said their presence in her luggage was due to hasty packing.

Before being sentenced on Aug. 4 and receiving a punishment her lawyers said was out of line for the offense, an emotional Griner apologized “for my mistake that I made and the embarrassment that I brought on them.” She added: “I hope in your ruling it does not end my life.”

Her supporters had largely stayed quiet for weeks after her arrest, but that approach changed in May once the State Department designated her as unlawfully detained. A separate trade, Marine veteran Trevor Reed for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot convicted in the U.S. in a cocaine trafficking conspiracy, spurred hope that additional such exchanges could be in the works.

Whelan has been held in Russia since December 2018. The U.S. government also classified him as wrongfully detained. He was sentenced in 2020 to 16 years in prison.

Whelan was not included in the Reed prisoner swap, escalating pressure on the Biden administration to ensure that any deal that brought home Griner also included him.
 
GriLtCheeZ said:
Griner for Bout: WNBA star freed in US-Russia prisoner swap

WASHINGTON (AP) — Russia freed WNBA star Brittney Griner on Thursday in a dramatic high-level prisoner exchange, with the U.S. releasing notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, American and Russian officials said. The swap, at a time of heightened tensions over Ukraine, achieved a top goal for President Joe Biden, but carried a heavy price — and left behind an American jailed for nearly four years in Russia.

The deal, the second such exchange in eight months with Russia, procured the release of the most prominent American detained abroad. Griner is a two-time Olympic gold medalist whose monthslong imprisonment on drug charges brought unprecedented attention to the population of wrongful detainees.

Biden’s authorization to release a Russian felon once nicknamed “the Merchant of Death” underscored the escalating pressure that his administration faced to get Griner home, particularly after the recent resolution of her criminal case and her subsequent transfer to a penal colony.

The swap was confirmed by U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the negotiations who were not authorized to publicly discuss the deal before a White House announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity. Biden spoke with Griner on the phone Thursday while her wife, Cherelle, was in the Oval Office. The president was to address reporters later in the morning.

“Moments ago I spoke to Brittney Griner. She is safe. She is on a plane. She is on her way home,” Biden tweeted.

The Russian Foreign Ministry also confirmed the swap, saying in a statement carried by Russian news agencies that the exchange took place in Abu-Dhabi and that Bout has been flown home.

Russian and U.S. officials had conveyed cautious optimism in recent weeks after months of strained negotiations, with Biden saying in November that he was hopeful that Russia would engage in a deal now that the midterm elections were completed. A top Russian official said last week that a deal was possible before year’s end.

Even so, the fact that the deal was a one-for-one swap was a surprise given that U.S. officials had for months expressed their their determination to bring home both Griner and Paul Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive jailed in Russia since December 2018 on espionage charges that his family and the U.S. government has said are baseless.

In releasing Bout, the U.S. freed a a former Soviet Army lieutenant colonel whom the Justice Department once described as one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers. Bout, whose exploits inspired a Hollywood movie, was serving a 25-year sentence on charges that he conspired to sell tens of millions of dollars in weapons that U.S officials said were to be used against Americans.

The Biden administration was ultimately willing to exchange Bout if it meant Griner’s freedom. The detention of one of the greatest players in WNBA history contributed to a swirl of unprecedented public attention for an individual detainee case — not to mention intense pressure on the White House.

Griner’s arrest in February made her the most high-profile American jailed abroad. Her status as an openly gay Black woman, locked up in a country where authorities have been hostile to the LBGTQ community, infused racial, gender and social dynamics into her legal saga and made each development a matter of international importance.

Her case not only brought unprecedented publicity to the dozens of Americans wrongfully detained by foreign governments, but it also emerged as a major inflection point in U.S.-Russia diplomacy at a time of deteriorating relations prompted by Moscow’s war against Ukraine.

The exchange was carried out despite deteriorating relations between the powers. But the imprisonment of Americans produced a rare diplomatic opening, yielding the highest-level known contact between Washington and Moscow — a phone call between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov — in more than five months.

In an extraordinary move during otherwise secret negotiations, Blinken revealed publicly in July that the U.S. had made a “substantial proposal” to Russia for Griner and Whelan. Though he did not specify the terms, people familiar with it said the U.S. had offered Bout.

Such a public overture drew a chiding rebuke from the Russians, who said they preferred to resolve such cases in private, and carried the risk of weakening the U.S. government’s negotiating hand for this and future deals by making the administration appear too desperate. But the announcement was also meant to communicate to the public that Biden was doing what he could and to ensure pressure on the Russians.

Besides the efforts of U.S. officials, the release also followed months of backchannel negotiations involving Bill Richardson, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a frequent emissary in hostage talks, and his top deputy Mickey Bergman. The men had made multiple trips abroad in the last year to discuss swap scenarios with Russian contacts.

Griner was arrested at the Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport in February when customs officials said they found vape canisters with cannabis oil in her luggage. She pleaded guilty in July, though still faced trial because admitting guilt in Russia’s judicial system does not automatically end a case.

She acknowledged in court that she possessed the canisters, but said she had no criminal intent and said their presence in her luggage was due to hasty packing.

Before being sentenced on Aug. 4 and receiving a punishment her lawyers said was out of line for the offense, an emotional Griner apologized “for my mistake that I made and the embarrassment that I brought on them.” She added: “I hope in your ruling it does not end my life.”

Her supporters had largely stayed quiet for weeks after her arrest, but that approach changed in May once the State Department designated her as unlawfully detained. A separate trade, Marine veteran Trevor Reed for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot convicted in the U.S. in a cocaine trafficking conspiracy, spurred hope that additional such exchanges could be in the works.

Whelan has been held in Russia since December 2018. The U.S. government also classified him as wrongfully detained. He was sentenced in 2020 to 16 years in prison.

Whelan was not included in the Reed prisoner swap, escalating pressure on the Biden administration to ensure that any deal that brought home Griner also included him.
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TLDR - Russia has traded Brittney Griner and a future 2nd round pick to the United States for shooting guard Viktor Bout.
 
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Not getting the former Marine out at the same time, while releasing "The Merchant of Death" is a horrible trade.
 
Good for her and I am happy she is coming home, but this was a terrible deal. There is so many things wrong with this whole situation though. We traded a basketball player for the merchant of death and not also getting Paul Whelan is an embarrassment. Also the whole situation is a slap in the face of every American sitting in our own jails right now for marijuana related charges. I hope she becomes and activist for either cause, it would make me feel a lot better if she realized her privileges in this situation and used her influence to try and make a difference.
 
crandc said:
She has been in imminent danger. Getting her home is good. Her supporters can't be quiet, fight for release of Whelan.
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You think Whelan is going to get the same media coverage and focus she got ... not a chance in hell. Griner better be wearing a "Free Paul Whelen" shirt every single day of her life until he gets released!
 
Glad she’s free finally

her case doesn’t have to do with others. Good to have a high profile american out of the gulag
 
crandc said:
It's not a good situation. We are not dealing with honorable people. There was a chance to get an American citizen out of danger. Do it.
I will gladly wear a Free Paul Whelan shirt.
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I don't like it. It sets the precedent that countries can basically take Americans hostage and get whoever they want released. Or maybe it's only celebrities. If I was a celeb I would think long and hard before visiting unstable countries in the future.
 
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