I realize the N&R’s Jim Schlosser is a respected reporter here in Greensboro, but his coverage of the ACC Women’s Tournament has become predictable. Whenever the tournament rolls into town, Schlosser goes down to the Greensboro Coliseum and gets all Phil Donahue on us, bemoaning the lack of respect the women’s game gets compared to the men.
This year the fous is UNC’s Ivory Latta, the ACC’s Palyer of the Year:
If she were only a man, though she loves being a woman…
Had she been a he and as valuable to the North Carolina men’s basketball team as she is to the women’s, senior Ivory Latta would soon be pulling down millions.
An NBA team would present her a signing bonus that would be enough to make her rich. It would also pay her a multimillion-dollar annual salary. Lucrative product endorsement contracts would add to her net worth.
But the reality is she’ll be lucky to make $60,000 a season in the WNBA . That’s about top pay in a league yet to draw the crowds and the media attention of the much older men’s NBA…..It seems unfair that a trough of gold might not await her at the end of her four-year stay in Chapel Hill.
Hey, good for Latta. She’s a great player and definitely has a bright future ahead of her, no matter which career path she chooses. Good for the tournament, too. As I’ve said before, anything that puts asses in the seats of our money-losing coliseum is a good thing. But until the women’s game has the speed and physicality on display in the Tar Heel men’s last two losses, the money’s just not going to be there.
