pool

The Monday afternoon. The slate for opening weekend and the timing for a number of the league’s marquee matchups had been the massive information, however there have been additionally some noteworthy numbers in the event you dug deeper into the information launch.

Let’s begin with the whole prize pool. The league introduced the prize pool for the Commissioner’s Cup might be $500,000 this season, matching final season’s quantity. It’s also in step with how a lot the league has put up for grabs in each version of the Cup because it started in 2021. (By comparability, every participant on the profitable NBA Cup crew this month will get $514,971). So why does that quantity elevate an eyebrow? It’s decrease than what the ’s collective bargaining settlement requires.

The CBA, ratified in 2020, says the WNBA has the best to create a contest or match through the common season and that any “particular competitions or tournaments shall embody a minimal combination participant prize pool of fifty thousand {dollars} ($50,000) for the 2020 season and 7 hundred and fifty thousand {dollars} ($750,000) for every subsequent season hereunder.”

There may be presently just one such competitors through the WNBA season: the Commissioner’s Cup. However the prize pool doesn’t match what the CBA requires. So, the place is the opposite $250,000?

The unique purpose when that CBA was written was for the WNBA to have a number of competitions, in accordance with league sources. The CBA says they might have been held throughout coaching camp, the common season or within the playoffs. However that plan modified, and the league has launched only one. The remaining cash that was purported to be for these new competitions was reallocated elsewhere across the league, these sources mentioned.

Then there may be the opposite a part of the gamers’ compensation for the Commissioner’s Cup. The WNBA additionally mentioned Coinbase, the cryptocurrency market that sponsors the Cup, will give out $120,000 in cryptocurrency as an extra prize pool; that additionally started final season when Coinbase gave $120,000 in complete to 2 finalists. It doesn’t rely as a part of the league’s official prize pool.

That cash might be doled out, in accordance with a WNBA spokesperson, by the corporate. Coinbase will give $5,000 price of Bitcoin to every participant, immediately into their accounts. The worth of that crypto can, in fact, fluctuate.

If members of the and — the 2024 Commissioner’s Cup finalists — stored their Bitcoin since taking part in in that sport, it will be price roughly $7,900 (assuming they obtained it proper across the day of the sport). However the value of Bitcoin has different throughout that point, and the way a lot that allotment is price to every participant just isn’t uniform. In accordance with CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin was price $61,789 the night time of the Cup closing, dipped to as little as $53,991 on Aug. 5, was as excessive as $99,006 on Nov. 22 and is price $95,579 on the time of this writing.

Nonetheless, the thought of getting paid in cryptocurrency introduced again some tough recollections for ladies’s sports activities followers. In 2021, the made Voyager associate and mentioned the corporate would fund crypto accounts for all gamers. A couple of months later, Voyager filed for chapter and the , in accordance with a Sportico report.

Within the WNBA’s case, the crypto prize package deal would at the least possible put cash into the gamers’ arms in comparison with earlier prize swimming pools. it will donate a complete of $2,500 per regular-season Cup sport to organizations and charities chosen by every crew, and one other $15,000 after the Cup closing. , it mentioned there can be at the least $165,000 in charitable donations.

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