ESPN’s Katie Nolan recently argued that WNBA players are underpaid.
Now, you could argue that they aren’t, given the WNBA’s inability to bring in a lot of revenue. That’s a discussion worth having.
This rebuttal video claiming Nolan used “alternative facts,” on the other hand, is full of ad hominem arguments and alternative facts of its own.
I commented on the video. I’m not sure what happened to the comment. It’s certainly buried by a bunch of the usual nonsense that would be right at home on an incel Reddit.
I saw a t-shirt the other day and it read: Marriages don’t fail. wives fail
Who needs facts when you can wear makeup.
HA HA HA HA HA girl athletesWomen should just stay in their lane. Cook, clean, and raise the kids.I don’t care what profession, or talent it is MEN are better at it.Since the dawn of time the best writers, philosophers, scientists, engineers, athletes, doctors, lawyers, politicians, soldiers, carpenters, psychologists, bankers, etc. have all been MENHell even the best chefs in the world are MEN.Face it ladies, it’s a mans world. Always has been, always will be. Now go make me a sammichLMFAO
Women always have their hand out to men expecting us to provide. It has been that way for thousands of years. If the really want to make NBA money they should go try out for the teams. There is no law restricting women or anyone from trying out.
but Katie Nolan is hot so……. I didn’t listen to her anyway (joke)
Put some panties/booty shorts on and we’ll talk
And there’s the usual “liberals don’t like facts / SJW” nonsense and the complaints that the NBA is trying to “shove the WNBA down our throats.” Yeah, OK.
You should be able to get to my rebuttal by following this link, though it apparently glitches in Twitter.
In any case, here’s what I said …
I don’t mind a factual analysis. You take it too far by saying Nolan “lied” or “hasn’t done any research.”
Your historical notes are flat-out wrong. NBA teams give away tickets, too. I once went to a Wizards game on company tickets and had a fun conversation with another guy across 10 empty seats. We both were there for free, and they couldn’t even give away the seats between us. The announced attendance was close to a sellout — just as it often is in many sports.
Also, better pay WOULD help the talent level in the WNBA. A lot of players worldwide don’t bother with the WNBA. (I’m tempted to say “you didn’t do any research,” but no — you just didn’t realize this point.)
And you’re DEAD wrong about the Mystics and the WNBA final.
Other points are strong. I’d again say she didn’t lie or fail to do any research. You just found some other points that are also valid, and it’s up to us to weigh the evidence.
And while your personal attack on Nolan at the end is unwarranted and comes across as male insecurity (not to mention an ad hominem argument, a logical fallacy — and we men are supposed to be good at logic, yes?), it’s fair to ask why women don’t do more to support women’s sports. Why are most NWSL owners men, for example? (Granted, men have a lot more money in general, but there are indeed some women — far richer than Nolan — who can help out.)
But your commenters are douchebags. Waaah, waaaah, feminists are ruining my life. (They’re not. You guys are just snowflakes.) And “lesbos”? “Broads”?
Look, you’re threatened by smart women. Deal with your insecurities and quit taking them out on the rest of us. No one’s forcing women’s sports down your throats. You don’t have to watch. You can still watch every NBA game you want.
So no — these aren’t “blatant lies.” You’ve just got issues, dude.
A day later, I think I was too nice.
Ranting Soccer Dad 
He addressed all of her points and refuted them quite well. You claiming ad hominem is not only a bit misguided and incorrect, but is also what’s known as a fallacy fallacy. He criticized her, yes, but to misconstrue that criticism as some sort of personal attack devoid of an actual argument (especially after he addressed all of her other points) is fairly weak for you to take issue with it. Even if we agreed that it was an ad hominem, it doesn’t invalidate everything else he said in the video.
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Thanks for the feedback. Do you have any thoughts on the factual points I raised or my argument that “blatant lies” was way too far for what is essential a dispute over interpretation?
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You claimed ad hominem on his part; meaning, that he said the reason she is wrong is because of a character flaw or limitation (e.g. Katie does no do research, hence her arguments are wrong). But, his rebuttals involved him arguing against the fact as opposed to her character. Therefore he cannot be criticised for ad hominem.
On your points about him being wrong about free tickets being given away. Again, that wasn’t;t the root of his argument, he said that 22nd year attendance was greater for the NBA than the WNBA. He did not say that Katie was wrong was because the NBA gave away free tickets.
Again, I am not siding with them, necessarily. I haven’t done enough research to take a stance. But, your rebuttal is wrong and I was merely pointing the out. Why? you may ask, I’m that fucking jobless
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To address your rebuttal using several points:
– his main argument was that Nolan made several false statements, which she did. The biggest ones being the overall wealth of the WNBA vs. the NBA as a reason to have equitable share of revenue. She misstated the facts, pure and simple. The NBA makes money and the players get a big share (as it is a “collective” bargaining agreement with the entire league, not teams.) The WNBA does NOT make money, so it makes sense that if they want a bigger share they will have to grow revenues to cover expenses.
– “I once went to a Wizards game on company tickets”. You use that as an example of “free” tickets. The company PAID for those tickets. When a sellout is announced, it means that the seats were SOLD, regardless of whether they were attended. Happens quite a bit. Big difference between that and a post for “seat fillers” as shown in the video.
– “A lot of players worldwide don’t bother with the WNBA”….. Such as?
– The note about Nolan not supporting the NBA is quite fair based on her “passionate” monologue on the league’s issues.
– “I’d again say she didn’t lie or fail to do any research. You just found some other points that are also valid, and it’s up to us to weigh the evidence.” She lied about NBA vs WNBA attendance and the NBA vs. WNBA tv contracts in year 22. She lied about the financial comparison between the leagues and it’s relevant to player share. No way around that.
There are I’m sure great discussions to be had about the WNBA and its future success. But Katie made a quite poor one that is really indefensible. I would encourage better, more informed people to try to make that case in the future.
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The biggest point for any viewer, in which Nolan did in fact lie or at least purposely misrepresents the facts, was when BE presented the full article from ESPN itself “A confidential report shows nearly half the NBA lost money last season. Now what?”
Nolan basically used the headline and the first few paragraphs as if that was all there was to that report. She neglected the extended portions explaining how most sports businesses (and most businesses overall) make a profit despite taking loses in some sectors. Doing this is an incredibly dishonest argument, if not just flat out lying about the business itself. The fact that the article came from her own network is telling to say the least. It points to an even bigger issue that she apparently doesn’t respect her viewers enough to be honest with them and present the full facts, preferring them to be ignorant so the argument she wants to make then becomes factual sound, even when it is not.
There is no issue with me or any other viewers when it comes to women’s sports, but how is it helping the future of the business when you lie about their position in the industry? You’re not likely to win any supporters when they find out you fed them half the story just so they would think what you want them to.
I think the WNBA needs to be honest with itself, and that means accommodating the fact that women are not as physically strong or large as men. The rim height should be reduced to make dunks more consistent. The court should be shortened, or the minutes per game decreased, to make sure they can keep up a consistent pace each game and increase the scoring pace. Sometimes WNBA games are lower scoring than even highschool boys basketball games, and slower as well. You need to adjust for that to give the viewer an exciting experience and the best part about this is that viewers are telling you what they want to see by looking at NBA’s most watched games.
WNBA will become more successful when the above is realized, instead of trying to force Women to compete in an unfair rule-set that was originally designed for Men. Tennis has done this, making the number of sets to win lower and it has brought great success for Women. Why is the WNBA unable to realize this?
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“A day later, I think I was too nice.”
How could any reasonable person look back on your “rebuttal” comment to his video and reach the conclusion, you were too nice?
1) 50% of this rebuttal is attacking the people in the comments section of the video. Has nothing to do with the video content.
2) “You take it too far by saying Nolan “lied” or “hasn’t done any research.””
>Would you prefer “Nolan misrepresented the truth?” or how about, “Nolan presented an argument not backed by facts”, or even my least favorite, “Fake news!”
3) “Your historical notes are flat-out wrong.”
>No, all his historical notes were, well, actual documented history.
4) ” I once went to a Wizards game on company tickets”
>A company perk is just that, a perk provided by the company. As in, they engaged is some sort of value transaction to acquire those tickets.
5) “The announced attendance was close to a sellout — just as it often is in many sports.”
Even for poorly performing teams, the majority of tickets are claimed by season ticket holders. The team on a losing streak, bad weather, seasonality; all of these can affect per game performance but the tickets have already been sold.
6) “Also, better pay WOULD help the talent level in the WNBA. A lot of players worldwide don’t bother with the WNBA.” This is likely true, at least in countries like Russian and China. But it has nothing to do with his argument. Also, the whole point is that the WNBA can’t afford better pay because the NBA is not interested in further subsidizing the league. The NBA players want a bigger piece of their own pie, and are not interested in sharing their income with players from another league, which takes money out of the pockets of either the players, the owners, or the fans (in the form of higher prices).
7) “And while your personal attack on Nolan at the end is unwarranted and comes across as male insecurity”
>Where did this shark jump come from? It’s male insecurity if you call out someone for “misrepresenting the truth” (read: lying)
8) “So no — these aren’t “blatant lies.” You’ve just got issues, dude”
>Clearly he’s not the one with issues. I take greater issue with someone who’s willing to ignore documented facts and history to defend flawed argument.
9) “Look, you’re threatened by smart women. Deal with your insecurities and quit taking them out on the rest of us. No one’s forcing women’s sports down your throats. You don’t have to watch. You can still watch every NBA game you want.”
>You jumped the shark, and jumped onto a horse in full, shining white knight armor.
You’re defending a woman’s fallacious argument simply because she’s a woman, and then attacking a man simply because he’s a man, even though he’s correct.
You are correct though, no one forces us to watch the WNBA and no one does. I have to remind you, however, that, Osaka Naomi just won over $3m for the Australian open and over $10m in the past 6 months. Top LPGA pros make well over $1m a year.
So don’t make this about “women’s sports”. This is about the WNBA being an unappealing product that has no core audience or fanbase significant enough to sustain a professional league.
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You guys will be happy to know Katie Nolan took a stand for baseball pay on Drunk History last week. It’s pretty good.
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The video you linked to provided a lot of facts. Quoting commentors rather than those facts is nonsense, and make you look stupid. You’re entire reply is filled with ad hominems, which you accuse the video maker of, so I don’t know if you don’t know what the term means or you don’t care because you’re on the ‘right’ side of what you’ve taken for a political issue, and the other guy is ‘the enemy’ and can be treated however you like, but unless you want to post some secret stats and the source to show why your numbers are different from people who are actually part of the business you’re attacking, you should remove this embarrassment of a blog post.
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People that commented those mean things about women are wrong, but you are basically just as bad as those people. Don’t get mad when men attack women if you just instantly turn around and attack men. The creator of the video would have made the exact same points he did if a male ESPN employee was talking instead of Katie. Why do you think otherwise? You cherrypicked a couple of points he made in his video to make your arguement and you failed to convince me of anything using logic and facts. I have enjoyed many a Connecticut Sun basketball game, but the reality is that the money is not there. Also, if Katie’s statements are wrong, isn’t that a lie? I came here hoping that the WNBA might not actually be dying, but now I am only more convinced of its impending doom.
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Five months later and people are still commenting?
I can’t be attacking “all men” and then only attacking YouTube commenters. Make up your mind, guys.
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no you just blatantly attacked the video maker insinuating he had ulterior motives when it seems as though you and your hard on for Katie is where the hidden agenda lies. we get it your an old man out of your prime and fantasies of unattainable celebrities are worth embarrassing yourself and looking like a complete idiot for. nothing you said has value you pathetic simp
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Shouldn’t you be in middle school?
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You deserve to be called out! That’s why 5 months later people are still commenting!
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I liked your article…..but I seem to be the only one. Oh well! Keep it up! I thought you had great points.
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You, sir, are embarassingly delusional. The guy made a very well prepared, factual video as a reply to a ridiculous comparison full of lies (or lack or research?), and you create this reply making it personal on many levels while ignoring the facts and misunderstanding the reply video. He is running a casual Youtube channel and yet he’s way more professional than you, someone who had a long career in journalism, wrote books and runs a serious looking website. You representing any form of journalism is a disgrace.
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Wow the writer of this article got absolutely dismantled in the comments section. Oh well you shall be remembered fondly Sir Knight!
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I realise this is an old post, but I can’t help but comment since you were/are so catastrophically out of line.
I enjoy the fact that you ignore logic, facts and figures in your “response”, then say that anyone who disagrees with you is threatened by smart women. While “no one is forcing the sport down your throat”, people seem to realise that if the NBA makes ~130 times the amount of revenue the WNBA does while fielding 30 teams compared to 12 they should be able to divide the money in a different way. If the WNBA offered a unique or superior product perhaps the conversation could be different, but strictly speaking the WNBA is not even close to a comparable product. Perhaps it could be compared to NCAA basketball, although the ratings and revenue tend to be higher with the NCAA.
The “I went to a free game once” argument is also completely irrelevant here, since the WNBA has on average 40% of the attendance of NBA games regardless of how tickets are distributed. Free or paid, attendance suggests the WNBA appeals to a much smaller audience. It’s not a sexism thing, seems people just like watching something more competitive/interesting. Seeing as men account for more than 90 % of the WNBA audience it also seems that without men the numbers watching would be closer to hundreds than thousands of viewers.
Also, if you ever decide to spew your thoughts into an “article” in the future, you may want to consider avoiding stooping to the same level as the people you complained about who commented. Your name calling and pathetic attempt at antagonism makes you seem quite hypocritical, which in addition to being condescending, petty and delusional shows you definitely haven’t got much to offer to any potential readers. Other than the opportunity to dismantle you in the comments that is.
In future you should consider sticking to what you know, which I assume is soccer. I suppose you can relate to the WNBA, seeing as people care about soccer about as much as they care about the WNBA.
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